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What’s New for Next Year’s Planting with BASF

The 2024 National Association of Farm Broadcasters Convention brought together agricultural communicators and industry leaders from across the nation. Farm Broadcaster Corryn La Rue was there and spoke with Bill Backhaus, Midwest agronomist with BASF to discuss the upcoming year. Here’s that conversation.

Q: Bill, tell me a little bit about what’s going on today. We’ve got a crazy day. You’re talking about a lot of different things. You want to clue me in on a few of those?

BB: Absolutely, Corryn. So as we really dig, we’ve got a lot of things going on (at BASF) – a lot of exciting things going on. So 2025 is going to basically mark the launch of our proprietary germplasm into the market from a soybean seed perspective. We’ve been breeding soybeans for over a decade.

We have not launched one into the marketplace, and this first year we’re going to launch them. We’re really excited about that – bringing a whole host of unique germplasm to the marketplace. When I say germplasm, I mean genetic diversity.

So when you think about genetic diversity, I’ll use a deck of cards. For example, you’ve got 52 in the deck. You’ve got so many aces, and you have so many jacks and kings. But we’re going to bring in more aces, we’re going to bring in more kings, we’re going to bring more jacks, and basically displace some of those twos and threes, right? So we want to have the best cards we possibly can for the producer.

If you think about that, that’s a genetic combination that we’re working on, and bringing in new germplasm to the marketplace. This year, we’re going to have 19 different varieties. We’re going to launch 12 of those will be BASF developed.

We got the trial results in. We’re really excited about what they’re doing here this year and how fun it’s been to test them for the past couple years. (It’s) really kind of (like seeing) your kids go off college, if you will, and get them graduated off and go out to basically produce more yield for your customers. So by 2028, we’re working on the first BT soybean to hit the marketplace called Nemosphere.

We launched the name back in June, and we’re going to continue to do a lot of trials with that, but again, very specific to soybeans, this nematode, and really focused on controlling that. So more to follow pending regulatory approval in 2028.

Q: Things ending out the year in 2024, producers are looking at 2025 a little sideways. They’re concerned about the challenges that they might encounter. And if they’re listening right now, what does 2025 look like for you guys and how can you help them out?

BB: As you look at the holistic approach of production agriculture, there’s a lot of things at BASF that we do really and for the (most) part, basically taking care of the toughest job on earth.

So let’s talk soybean first. Let’s go into that and really look at it. You start with your seed, right? I believe it all starts with the seed to get the best genetics you can.

Think about the diseases, think about what you had in 2023, because that’s where you’re rotating back to think about that field. So (think), what did I have there in that field for diseases and concerns and challenges?

We had a lot of variability and across the whole Midwest, highs and lows and lots of things going on from a disease perspective. We had a lot of SDs, we had white mold and SVN soybean cyst nematode continues to be a problem. So search out and find the best of the best variety that you possibly can.

Okay, so now let’s go on to understanding placement.  So placing that variety, thinking about where I’m going to put it, how I’m going to plant it, what population am I going to drop it at, and where am I going to go with that. And then really think about how I’m going to control the weeds and the other pests in that field.

So we have Zidua Pro, (which) would be a product that we use basically for our pre-planting … it’s one of the top selling products in the marketplace today.

And we got Liberty Ultra, which would be new – very exciting new launch on our herbicides there. As we get into the fungicide, I’ll then add Zidua Pro into a layered residual approach.

And then we look at what we’re going to do at R3. We want to basically spray a fungicide or an insecticide and really control the other pests that we have. So, use like Revytek or Fast Tac … or Veltyma and then really get to harvest timing at the right time.

So those are some things we have to think through from a soybean perspective.

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