The Deltapine New Product Evaluator Program kicks off its 14th season with NPE growers evaluating cotton variety candidates containing ThryvOn Technology, which is the industry’s first cotton biotech trait to protect against feeding damage from tarnished plant bug and thrips species.
The three ThryvOn Technology variety candidates are stacked with Bollgard 3 XtendFlex Technology and are part of a set of 11 variety candidates being evaluated this season by the NPE growers across the Cotton Belt for the Deltapine Class of ’22.
“Our NPE growers are once again evaluating the genetics bringing an upcoming trait technology to market, just like they did in 2014 with XtendFlex Technology in cotton, continuing this program’s goal of providing farmer-proven varieties with improved performance potential for all U.S. cotton growers,” said Keylon Gholston, Deltapine cotton product manager. “Also being evaluated this season is a set of Bollgard 3 XtendFlex Technology candidates in new genetics that bring variances across the board, but they all bring high yield potential equal to, or better than, the most widely-planted germplasm planted over the past four years, DP 1646 B2XF.”
Included in the Bollgard 3 XtendFlex Technology lineup are variety candidates showing excellent fiber properties and resistance to diseases, such as bacterial blight. Mid-South and Southeast NPE growers will evaluate four candidates in the mid- to-mid-full maturity range, whereas last year these regions evaluated candidates more in the early and early-mid maturity categories.
NPE growers in the Southwest will evaluate three Bollgard 3 XtendFlex Technology candidates.
“These variety candidates are from a unique set of germplasm that will be very different from what growers, especially in West Texas, currently have in a Deltapine bag,” Gholston said. “These candidates offer large seed size and have shown in our pre-NPE testing good emergence and early season vigor, as well as high yield potential and good fiber quality potential. We believe these new products can address some of the issues growers in the Southwest have communicated to us.”
Deltapine NPE growers will also evaluate two Bollgard 3 XtendFlex Technology variety candidates showing resistance to root-knot nematode and an XtendFlex Technology-only candidate in the Southwest. The 2021 NPE plots will be managed according to each grower’s practices, consisting of both irrigated and non-irrigated fields, planted in various soil types and subjected to local environmental conditions. Feedback from NPE growers helps the Deltapine team determine which candidates to commercialize.
Deltapine contributed this article.