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The 7-acre facility will equal 190 acres of open-field production

Lee Allen, Contributing Writer

March 9, 2020

4 Min Read
Corn growing in a greenhouse
Overhead screened venting allows adjustment to environmental conditions in Bayer Crop Science's corn-breeding greenhouse near Tucson, Ariz.Lee Allen

With early March temperatures posting above-average numbers --- read, 80 degrees --- agri-giant Bayer CropScience ended three years of construction and cut the ribbon on its $100+ million dollar greenhouse in the Arizona desert.

A first-of-its-kind for the conglomerate, the fully automated 7 acres under glass will equal 190 acres of open-field production and will serve as a seed development and production site. Local company representative Stefanie Boe called the 30-foot-tall steel-and-glass edifice “a marvel of architecture.”

Although nearly 100 employees wearing lime green company shirts will push the start buttons and perform the more delicate hand-pollination procedures, the site is the most technically advanced of Bayer locations with machines and artificial intelligence functioning in sustainable fashion.

A host of high-ranking Bayer Crop Science officials attended the March 4 ribbon cutting including Lisa Safarian, President of North American Commercial Operations: “This is an important day because the corn hybrids moving through this giant greenhouse are the ones that will be turned over to my team to be sold to farmers in the U.S. and Canada. For people in the field, this means they’ll get new corn product innovation --- the hybrids of greatest benefit to farmers --- faster than they’ve ever been able to before.”

Related:Arizona becomes home to Bayer corn breeding program

“As a company, we run about 10 years ahead of what farmers are indicating they need and we’re shortening that timeframe here to six years or less,” added Boe.

“Farmers are looking for solutions to a myriad of problems from water conservation to sustainability while increasing their yield, so what is learned here represents many pieces of that puzzle about seed traits and attributes.  We are looking, literally, seed-by-seed, for those traits to bring them forward.”

The anticipation is that more than half a million corn plants will be grow and processed here annually.

The back-East business folks were welcomed by a contingent of Arizona agricultural officials including the director of the state’s Department of Agriculture, Mark Killian, who said: “When I started in this business 50 years ago, we could only dream about things like this.”

Arizona Farm Bureau President Stephanie Smallhouse added: “There’s a reason why Bayer came to Arizona and with their arrival, we have an epicenter for the rest of the world, a center for global agriculture and technology.”

Climate was attractive

Prevalent sunshine and warm temperatures were certainly attractions too.  As site coordinator Matt Lingard told the audience: “It takes years of research in open-field conditions to develop the next generations of products that can perform at the commercial level.  If you work outside, you usually get one planting opportunity a year while in this greenhouse, we can plant multiple generations year-round, disrupting the way we used to think about product development and driving it at a pace we’ve never been able to do in the past.”

Related:Committing to 2020 for key Bayer products

The Marana site represents the breeding process in its most advanced form with sustainability at the core. The facility recycles roughly 90 percent of the water used for crop irrigation (and only 20% of the water normally used in open field grow).  At harvest, it composts 100 percent of the non-seed materials. And beneficial insects are invited in to do their thing.

Located on a 155-acre plot in agricultural country adjacent to a solar power farm, sensors and AI are an integral part of the multi-phase operation. “We’ve never grown corn like this,” says Lingard.  “We’ve changed the way we think about growing food and in the process are using natural resources more efficiently.”

Bayer’s Crop Science Research and Development Director Bob Reiter added: “Meeting the unique challenges that farmers face requires different ways of thinking and working and this facility is one such way.”

The site is tightly grouped according to flow and function. Genetically categorized seed selection begins the process with each seed received an individual identity, being identified and catalogued before being mechanically planted in a 128 seed germination tray which then moves along an automated conveyor under the ‘plant one, grow one’ philosophy of little waste in either time or motion.

Germination takes places in 7-10 days for the tens of thousands of plants handled daily. Transplanted seeds, one per pot in a moisture-holding pine fiber mix, grow rapidly allowing up to four start-to-finish crops per year.  Then comes the human touch during a hand pollination process that combines the best genetics to create the most resilient crops. At harvest, the seeds are ready for field testing.

Mike Graham, Bayer’s head of plant breeding research told the grand opening crowd: “Today’s agriculture is super technical, super innovation, and super exciting and this facility is a showcase to that.  Using technologies like genotyping, algorithms, and automation, we can grow individual plants with precision. The things we’re doing here will ultimately impact the farming industry and help growers become more sustainable.”

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