Monsanto Company is launching Acceleron brand seed treatment as part of its seed treatment platform announced earlier this year. Acceleron brand seed treatments are designed to help maximize crop performance potential beginning at planting.

It will provide new seed performance technologies designed to enhance the company’s elite genetics and trait technologies, Monsanto said.

Monsanto’s global seed treatment platform complements the company’s seed and trait strategy, as well as its investments in breeding and biotechnology, said Tom Schaefer, seed treatment marketing lead. The platform focuses on identifying new proprietary seed-based technologies that can be launched in parallel with soybean, corn and cotton products. Acceleron will be the brand for these treatments; the introduction to market will be on Roundup Ready 2 Yield soybeans for the 2009 season.

“We are designing new, unique seed-applied products for use with soybean, corn and cotton products that will offer benefits beyond the typical early season protection from diseases, insects, nematodes and environmental stress,” Schaefer said. “We feel it is more accurate to call Acceleron a seed performance technology.”

Randy Barker, Monsanto’s seed treatment strategy lead, said Monsanto is “uniquely capable of evaluating opportunities for seed performance enhancement across a broad geography for its genetics and trait products.

“We have the expertise of a leader in genetics and traits and with this we will have the opportunity to look at new seed performance technologies early in the development process with the traits and genetics,” he said. “This insight will be a key factor of the success we can achieve on-farm.”

The Acceleron brand will represent a wide range of evolving seed performance technologies.

Acceleron will be available when Roundup Ready 2 Yield soybeans are made available for commercial release and use. Acceleron will be available in SmartStax corn in 2010, Deltapine cotton in 2011 and in other crops in coming seasons.

Barker added that Acceleron is an example of the ongoing commitment by Monsanto to discover, evaluate and deliver novel products and technologies which can enhance the yield and profitability of farmers. “Our work in the area of Seed Performance Technology will help support the Monsanto objective of doubling yield by 2030.” he said.

For more information, go to http://www.monsanto.com/.