All Quiet On The Seed Front
May 28, 2009 After an explosive 2007, the cotton seed industry in 2008 was, by comparison, almost as quiet as a church mouse.
Looking back, in 2007 Monsanto bought Delta and Pine Land for $1.5 billion and divested itself of its Stoneville and NexGen brands. Bayer CropScience purchased Stoneville for $310 million and Americot bought NexGen — in addition to other specific D&PL germplasm — for $6.8 million. Syngenta acquired 43 D&PL lines with Syngenta’s VipCot insect-resistant trait, although they have not yet been marketed.
For 2008, D&PL again remains the number one single brand in Upland cotton seed market share, taking 41.5% of the market, according to USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service.
But Bayer Crop Science claims the number one spot overall when two of its brands — FiberMax and Stoneville — are combined. Fiber-Max’s 32.1% share added to Stoneville’s 14.2% gives Bayer 46.3% of the market.
Combined, D&PL and Bayer accounted for 87.8% of the varieties sold in 2008.
Dow AgroScience’s PhytoGen varieties claimed a 4.1% share of the Upland acreage. Americot, including its NexGen lines, had a 2.7% share, followed by All-Tex at 1.8% and Dyna-Gro at 1.5%.
D&PL’s DP 555 BR was yet again number one for individual varieties sold with 17.2% of the market. Stoneville’s ST 4554 B2RF was second with a 7.9% market share and was the number one Bollgard II/Roundup Ready Flex variety sold in 2008. FiberMax’s FM 9063B2F was third with a 7.1% share.
Three other D&PL varieties — DP 444 BR, DP 445 BR and DP 164 B2RF — accounted for a combined 14.5% share. With Monsanto’s decision not to reregister Bollgard with the EPA, 2009 will be the last year 555, 444 and 445 are marketed. Beginning in 2010, only Bollgard II varieties will be available from D&PL.
Not surprisingly, each segment of the Cotton Belt had its favorite varieties. DP 555 BR had an amazing 85.85% share in Georgia, 50.27% in Alabama, 39.41% in Louisiana, 14.09% in Mississippi and 45.36% in South Carolina.
Georgia was the only state other than Texas to plant more than 1 million acres of cotton in 2008. D&PL had a total market share in Georgia of 93.32%.
In Texas, FiberMax’s FM 9058F was tops with a 16.02% share. A FiberMax variety was planted on 67.63% of the acreage in Texas, followed by All-Tex with 4.04%.
For Pima varieties, PhytoGen’s PHY 800 had a 66.9% share, followed by D&PL’s DP 340 Pima with 22.9%.
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