Syngenta drops its barley seed package
SYNGENTA SEEDS is dropping its controversial Hybrid Barley System of marketing top-yielding six-row feed barley Colossus in combination with its own-brand agchems and advice.
The move comes two years after it launched the variety, this year seeing just 290 growers supporting the alternative approach to seed sales, with 4000ha (9884 acres) of Colossus in an overall winter barley market of 380,000ha (938,980 acres).
“Administering legally binding agreements on the joint supply of seed and chemicals proved to be just too complicated for agriculture at the moment,” admits seeds manager Robert Hiles.
Market research showed growers were not too averse to the concept, he insists, many producing over 10t/ha of the variety. But the variety took little more than 1% of the total barley market, despite six-rows expanding to take a 16% share overall.
Selling the firm’s own agchems with the seed was meant to boost returns from the technology. But the move was thwarted by the slump in the winter barley crop, plunging margins, grower reluctance, tricky contract administration and trade disinterest, particularly where they were not selling Syngenta Crop Protection products.
“We’ve learned a lot about marketing varieties and I would not rule the approach out for the future,” says Syngenta Seeds chief executive Gary Mills-Thomas. “It’s all intellectual property which we have acquired and could help with closed loop marketing in future, particularly if there are added-value traits involved.”
Free from the agchem link, hybrid barley sales should enjoy a new lease of life, the firm hoping Colossus will double its area this autumn.
Sister hybrid variety Boost, now in final year HGCA Recommendation List trials, could do better still, given its combination of equally high yield, better grain quality, improved brown rust resistance and BaYMV resistance, says Mr Hiles.
