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In this episode, we look back on the past 100 years, and highlight what will carry over into this next chapter in the company’s history. Corteva Agriscience chief technology and digital officer Sam Eathington and some really special guests discuss the past, present and future of agriscience innovation. 

And here we are today with I think arguably the most amazing sort of agriculture feats and what's happened with hybrid corn production around the world….It's cool to kind of look back. The team's done, done a lot to review the history and put it together and it's a good time to hear stories from people that were there and really made stuff happen. But it's also a great time for us to look forward and think about what could agriculture become and where are we going.” - Sam Eathington

Dr. Stan Jensen is a plant breeder who was hired by Raymond Baker himself in the 1950s.. During his 44-year career with Pioneer, he contributed to the development of 39 successful single-cross hybrids for commercial release totaling more than 23 million units. Now in his 90s, Jensen got to witness firsthand the transformation that hybrid corn made possible. 

“ Corn is a very innovative plant. And to learn about it and keep studying and work on the changes, it's an amazing plant.

I really have a got a lot of respect for the corn plant.” - Dr. Stan Jensen

Also joining the conversation is one more connection to Raymond Baker. Raymond’s grandson, Joe Baker, attended the Pioneer 100 event. He remembers that his grandfather was quick to credit Iowa State for their role in the history of hybridization. 

Grandpa always used to say if it wasn't for Iowa State, he wouldn't have met Henry Wallace, and there wouldn't be any Pioneer… He felt Iowa State was responsible for a lot of his success because he got to meet everybody. - Joe Baker

This collaborative approach, not only with Iowa State, but with other companies and partners is shining through in the latest focus for agriscience innovation: genome editing. You’ve heard in previous episodes about the Genlytix platform Corteva has built. Eathington shares that that platform is something that will be carried forward and expanded as part of Vylor. 

Genlytix for us was a way we sort of brought everything together, not only the gene editing piece, but what are you doing on social responsibility? What are you doing on regulatory and policy? How are you collaborating around the world with not only universities, but startups or small companies in the space, and really bring the whole community forward around gene editing where we can. It's obviously much bigger than just Corteva, but where's our part, and how do we bring that forward? So that will continue in Vylor.” - Sam Eathington

To continue this journey with genetic advancements you’ll want to listen to Episode 30 of this podcast where we shared the recent progress with global regulatory approval. The EU has put policy in place to differentiate gene editing from GMO technology and paved the way for a regulatory framework that could allow for gene edited crops to be grown in Europe in the not-so-distant future. Another example is our episode 26 on Plenish Soybeans for how genetics can shift value from processing back to the farm. The idea that this could be a lot more common is an exciting one, because farmers can grow specialty products in a productive commodity system.

Please send your feedback on the podcast to [email protected]

A few takeaways from this episode: 

1. The meaning behind the name Vylor is very fitting for this episode. It combines the “valor” of the past with “vying” for the future. 
2. The promise of genome editing and the potential impact this will have on farmers. Everything from disease resistance to value added commodities, this technology is at the very beginning of what seems like will be an incredible impact on this industry. 
3. The Long Look. There are some things that are just timeless, and despite all of the many changes in agriscience innovation, a focus on performance, ethics, transparency, and long-term farmer success remains a core philosophy, and one that is not likely to change. 

Agriscience Explained is brought to you by Corteva Agriscience and hosted by Tim Hammerich. This show is produced by Clint Pilcher, Rayda Krell and Ann Leonard. Jaime Hammerich helps to edit these podcasts, and the music was composed by Dmitri Volkov. Subscribe for more Agriscience Explained: From Science to Solutions.

Dr. Carla Yerkes joins us to help us tell the story of Rinskor and explain the process of herbicide innovation and the persistence and creativity it takes to develop new solutions for farmers. Yerkes is a research biologist at Corteva Agriscience and has a Ph.D. in herbicide physiology. She has spent about half of her 30 year career in herbicide discovery research and the other half in herbicide trait discovery. 

I think what keeps me excited is the fact that we continuously need new herbicides. Weeds find a way to battle back, and weeds continually need to be controlled…We, meaning industry people that produce the herbicides and discover them, had better be looking for what the farmers need next. And so you have to be way ahead of the curve, looking for what is needed. - Dr. Carla Yerkes

Scott Foth also joins the show. As a pest control advisor with over his 50 year career advising farmers, Foth has worked with just about every crop grown in the region. He shares how Rinskor (under the product name Hulk) is making a difference in California orchards in the battle against weed resistance.

So the thing that I've seen with Hulk is you can take a mature fleabane or marestail that's already gone, got seedheads on it, and you can spray it and it will kill it all the way down. You don't have to respray it, where with other herbicides you've got to spray them, burn it back, and then in a month, six weeks, you're probably back in there spraying them again. And so with Hulk it has eliminated them completely, takes them clear out to the root. - Scott Foth

Rinskor has won both the EPA Green Chemistry award and the American Chemical Society Heroes of Chemistry Award. It is a great example of an agriscience innovation that has made a significant impact. 

I have to say it's the most significant accomplishment in my career, and it is because it required a fair amount of creativity as well as persistence in order to make it happen. So I was proud of that, and I was proud of the fact that it worked, it worked well, and it's been great for rice farmers. It's very satisfying to see its utility expand into aquatics and into different crops because you could see the utility when you were working with it early on. - Dr. Carla Yerkes

A few takeaways from this episode: 

1. The value in the persistence to keep asking the question of “why” or in some cases “why not”? 
2. The importance of really understanding the use cases for technology.. Agriscience innovation is a two-way street between scientists and farmers and this is another great example of why that’s important.  
3. The future involves mining nature for more natural products or at least products inspired by nature. 

Agriscience Explained is brought to you by Corteva Agriscience and hosted by Tim Hammerich. This show is produced by Clint Pilcher, Rayda Krell and Ann Leonard. Jaime Hammerich helps to edit these podcasts, and the music was composed by Dmitri Volkov. Subscribe for more Agriscience Explained: From Science to Solutions.

What is happening in agriscience today that we will be talking about 100 years from now? While it’s impossible to answer that question with certainty, there is a technology that has the potential to impact our industry in the next century as much or even more than hybridization changed the game over the past century. That technology is genome editing. The promise of this technology is very real and today you’re going to hear firsthand accounts of what changed in 2012 and 2013 to make all of this possible, what did it look like to test the technology in plant breeding, and what does the strategy look like to turn this science into better solutions. 

“In 2012, we had the seminal paper from Jennifer Doudna, and the entire scientific community was getting very excited with how we could use a technology like CRISPR gene editing to precisely rewrite DNA to get to the end outcome that we want much faster than before… The question we were asking in Pioneer was, yes, we have the technology, and every week you see new improvements in efficiencies of the technology, but where do you apply it?” - Nandini Krishnamurthy, Ph.D. 

In this episode, we go behind the scenes to peek into how genome editing arrived on the scene in agriculture, where it stands currently, and why many scientists are calling it a revolutionary technology. Joining us are two people that have been a part of the emergence of CRISPR, the powerful tool that enables scientists to edit the DNA of living organisms. Dr. Nandini Krishnamurthy is the director of external technologies and gene editing ecosystem development at Corteva Agriscience. She has a background in genetics and cell biology and after finishing her PhD at Texas A&M, she focused on computational biology. Also joining us is Dr. Neal Gutterson. Gutterson has a background in executive leadership with biotechnology companies and joined Pioneer in 2014 as the vice president of research and development. He was instrumental in laying the groundwork for genome editing in plant breeding. 

“ To be able to fashion the strategy around how we would use and deploy genome editing in, you know, biotech/breeding, but then also how we position it in terms of the marketplace and farmers and other companies seemed like an incredible opportunity. ” - Neal Gutterson, Ph.D.

By proving the concept, communicating with the public and allowing access to the technology, a lot of the groundwork for gene editing in agriculture was already starting to be formed. However, the big question many of you still may be wondering is: what do the farmers think of this? For this we’ll turn back to the farmer we featured on episode 28 of this podcast: Corey Loesson. And while he doesn’t speak for all farmers, it’s safe to assume it echoes the perspective of many if not most out there. 

“ We're really talking about accelerated plant breeding, which plant breeding has been going on since agriculture started really, you know, centuries. And we're just getting better at it. And that better part enables us to produce food more efficiently ultimately. ” - Corey Loesson

A few takeaways from this episode: 

1. This technology is revolutionary and it’s here. There is a strong case to be made that with the right regulatory framework, this could be every bit as game-changing in the next century as hybridization was in the past century. 
2. This is not GMO 2.0 - it’s advanced breeding. These are two distinctly different approaches, but we also have some lessons learned from transgenics with regards to communication and engagement that I think will be important for the emergence of this biotechnology in crops. 
3. While farmers are not growing gene edited crops today, there has already been tremendous progress made toward utilizing this technology for their benefit. The difference between cooking a meal and serving it as Nandini said. We truly are at the end of the beginning and ready to enter this next chapter of commercially available gene edited crops. 

Agriscience Explained is brought to you by Corteva Agriscience and hosted by Tim Hammerich. This show is produced by Clint Pilcher, Rayda Krell and Ann Leonard. Jaime Hammerich helps to edit these podcasts, and the music was composed by Dmitri Volkov. Subscribe for more Agriscience Explained: From Science to Solutions.

In today’s episode, we’re following a molecule around the world, from being discovered in Japan to being developed in the United States to becoming a solution for farmers in the United Kingdom. Joining us is one of those farmers in the UK, Julian Gibbons. Julian has seen a variety of fungicide solutions come and go for important wheat diseases like Septoria tritici, or speckled leaf blotch. He’s really excited about the potential for a relatively newly registered product derived from a natural compound called Inatreq Active™. And the story of the need for Inatreq and the road to getting this product to farmers is the focus of today’s episode. 

Kevin Meyer, Ph.D., a discovery chemist for 26 years at Corteva, will give us the behind-the-scenes look at how Inatreq was initially discovered and developed, then shelved, only to be brought back from the archives with a new approach to turning some fascinating science into a solution farmers like Julian can use. 

“ With this new product concept in hand, we were like, "’Okay, if we can make a fungicide with this, you know, to control Septoria tritici in wheat, it probably is gonna end up controlling other things, but we can make a product out of that.’ …And the first time I ever heard that, I turned to a coworker of mine down the biology department and I said, ‘I know a molecule that does that. We should look at that again.’ And that was UK-2A …and we found one of those pro drug molecules that worked really, really well. We brought it out to the field, controlled Septoria really well.” - Kevin Meyer, Ph.D.

“ It does what it says. It's good control. We've never had as a product to actually use, we've never had an issue with it or anything like that. And it diversifies our control.” - Julian Gibbons

Takeaways from today’s episode: 

1. You never know where the next mode of action is going to come from. It’s so important that companies like Corteva Agriscience are constantly investing in the discovery process to try to find molecules like UK-2A that will help farmers diversify their approaches. 
2. It’s not as simple as just finding a molecule. The story of UK-2A shows how tedious and burdensome and in some cases frustrating the process can be. It’s no wonder why it takes so much time and investment to come up these novel solutions
3. The importance of formulation. The active ingredients get a lot of the spotlight because they are what gives us the outcomes we want, but Kevin is exactly right: it’s the formulation that will make or break a product. I wonder how many promising active ingredients don’t make it to commercialization because the formulation wasn’t quite right. Seems like a lot of opportunity here as well. 

Agriscience Explained is brought to you by Corteva Agriscience and hosted by Tim Hammerich. This show is produced by Clint Pilcher, Rayda Krell and Ann Leonard. Jaime Hammerich and Grant Bolton edit these podcasts, and the music was composed by Dmitri Volkov. Subscribe for more Agriscience Explained: From Science to Solutions.

We celebrate the 100th year anniversary of Pioneer Seeds, and take a look back at the history of hybridization. The process may seem simple: to take two varieties or even species and cross them together to create more desirable offspring. But the concept of controlled hybridization, intentionally transferring pollen from a chosen male parent to a chosen female parent, is relatively new in the history of agriculture. But it has been nothing short of revolutionary. 

This episode explores some of this history and poses questions like: what happened in the early 1900s with hybridization that opened the door for the formation of Pioneer and eventually the tremendous growth in yields over the past 100 years? What did adoption of hybrid corn look like in the early days and what can it teach us about adoption of new farm technologies today? Why has corn been the model for hybridization and what might still be possible for crops? 

“Since 1926 our population has gone up by four times, from about two billion to eight billion (people). But the productivity of corn has gone up almost twelve times…Also, we've taken this technology, as Marc Albertsen has talked about, and we've used it for other crops and made them much more productive.” - Lance Gibson

We’re asking these questions and many others of three experts on today’s episode: Corteva Agriscience Agronomy Training Manager Dr.  Lance Gibson, Saskatchewan farmer Corey Loessin and retired Pioneer employee Dr. Marc Albertsen, who was the first person hired in the newly formed biotechnology department at Pioneer in 1981, and went on to lead the agronomic traits group at the company. 

A few takeaways from this episode: 

• How much genetics generally and hybridization specifically has contributed to the incredible productivity increases from farmers in the past 100 years
• How the learnings from hybrid corn have translated into developing hybrids in other crops, and that we’re still in the very early days of realizing the benefits of hybrids in crops like wheat and canola.
• We still don’t fully understand heterosis. There are likely abundant opportunities to be discovered once scientists better understand this process.   

Agriscience Explained is brought to you by Corteva Agriscience and hosted by Tim Hammerich. This show is produced by Clint Pilcher, Rayda Krell and Ann Leonard. Jaime Hammerich and Grant Bolton edit these podcasts, and the music was composed by Dmitri Volkov. Subscribe for more Agriscience Explained: From Science to Solutions.

What does it take to break the world soybean yield record? Today we talk to soybean yield record-holder Alex Harrell and soybean breeder Don Kyle. Alex farms in southwest Georgia with his dad where they primarily grow soybeans, corn, wheat and watermelon. In 2023, he became the first farmer to record a soybean yield of over 200 bushels per acre. The next year he beat his own record coming in at 218.2856 bushels per acre. It’s an incredible achievement for anyone, but it’s even more impressive when you consider that Alex farms in an area that doesn’t generally grow a lot of soybeans. 

“ We did a lot of studying, a lot of class, made a lot of mistakes, and watched a lot of beans rot in our humidity. You know when the things do line up, we have a lot of yield potential there as well. ” - Alex Harrell

Farmers like Alex have had to learn these lessons and refine their system over years while experimenting with and matching up the right genetics for their fields. Don Kyle became interested in soybean breeding in the early 90s and has since dedicated his career in plant breeding to the crop. Today he’s a soybean breeder and Evaluation Zone Lead for the Eastern US at Corteva Agriscience based in Princeton, Illinois. He says even though he’s focused on soybeans for over 30 years, he’s more passionate than ever about the crop. Don thinks we might see more hybrid soybeans in the future, similar to what we’re currently seeing with wheat. But for now, farmers aren’t using hybrid soybeans so it’s even more impressive what farmers like Alex Harrell have been able to achieve in terms of yield growth over the years. 

“ It's very easy to produce soybean seed because they self-pollinate themselves. The problem is to produce hybrid seed is really difficult. So making a cross between two different soybean varieties today still requires using tweezers and sometimes magnifying glasses so you could see the flower parts the best. It's a very tedious job.” - Don Kyle

A few takeaways from this episode: 

1. Incredible yield growth is possible without hybrids in soybeans
2. The significance of detailed management allows for more precise practices that create the best yields
3. Successful genetics is more about varieties with resilience rather than yield magic to account for the many factors that can’t be controlled

Agriscience Explained is brought to you by Corteva Agriscience and hosted by Tim Hammerich. This show is produced by Clint Pilcher, Rayda Krell and Ann Leonard. Jaime Hammerich and Grant Bolton edit these podcasts, and the music was composed by Dmitri Volkov. Subscribe for more Agriscience Explained: From Science to Solutions.

In today's episode, we explore how agriscience has created a more valuable soybean. A soybean that gets the farmer more money, a dairy farm who buys it more profit, and has the added benefit of supporting a local agricultural economy. This is the story of Plenish soybeans. 

We are joined by Dairy scientist Dr. Bill Mahanna who works for Corteva Agriscience and manages Pioneer’s Global Nutrition Sciences Team. His team works with any product that might ultimately be fed to livestock, like corn, silage, and soybeans. Also joining us is Craig Phelps, who owns Edgewood Farms, Edgewood Grain, and Linwood Commodities based in Western New York. Craig buys, stores and roasts Plenish soybeans and sells them to dairy farmers in his area. Together we discuss components of dairy science, nutrition, agronomy, genetics, supply chain economics and more. It’s a great demonstration of how agriscience innovation can lead to better economic outcomes. 

To understand the Plenish story, it’s important to first understand the dairy science behind why they’re so desirable for dairy cows relative to commodity soybeans or other competing ingredients. Thirty nine years ago, Bill Mahanna became the first dairy-focused person hired by Pioneer. He grew up on a dairy farm in upstate New York and was a college professor of dairy science before joining the company. He says these high oleic soybeans, now known as Plenish soybeans, were developed about 14 years ago but initially the target market was food ingredients. Then they started to realize the potential this innovation could have in dairy rations.

“ It's a dense form of energy, it's a safe oil, it brings in the amino acid we need and can potentially, depending on how the ration is balanced, actually increase the butter fat content of milk.…It's a potentially homegrown feed that we process on the farm that's really relatively inexpensive for us compared to some of the other things that we might put in the diet like blood meal or palm fat or things like that.” - Dr. Bill Mahanna

So these high oleic soybeans found a very important place in a dairy cow’s ration. Dairy farmers want to feed certain fats to not only provide complete nutrition but to also boost the butterfat percentage of the milk that they sell to achieve a premium price. But the type of fat that they feed is really important, and that’s why Plenish soybeans have really taken off. 

Craig Phelps has worked as both a dairyman and crop producer. Through these experiences he has seen the dairy industry from multiple perspectives and today roasting Plenish soybeans for local dairies is a big part of his business. The biggest problem he has found is there not being enough Plenish soybeans for the demand.

“ That's what I recognized in the Plenish is if we could create a differentiated product, cut down the transportation, basically buy that product locally, process it locally, and sell it locally. We're cutting a lot out of the middle there, and hopefully everybody wins be it the grower, us as a processor in the middle and the dairyman getting a high quality product.” - Craig Phelps

A few takeaways from this episode: 

1. The opportunity we have to create new differentiated products that are innovative and unlock new value, but also work within the established system. 
2. Secondly is the fact that through agriscience, we can find ways to allow producers to capture and keep more of the value from what they’re producing. Rather than taking commodity beans and trying to convert them into better feed through extensive processing, genetics are sort of “baking” those solutions into the crop. 
3. The impact this is having on local communities: farmers receiving more per bushel, soybeans being consumed domestically that might have gone export, and a local company like Edgewood Grain connecting the supply chain. 

Agriscience Explained is brought to you by Corteva Agriscience and hosted by Tim Hammerich. This show is produced by Clint Pilcher, Rayda Krell and Ann Leonard. Jaime Hammerich and Grant Bolton edit these podcasts, and the music was composed by Dmitri Volkov. Subscribe for more Agriscience Explained: From Science to Solutions.

On today’s episode we uncover some critical details about one of the most destructive and adaptable insect pests in corn: corn rootworm. It has been referred to as the billion dollar pest for several years, and the reality is it’s probably closer to the two billion dollar pest now in terms of damages.

To explore the impact and management of corn rootworm we are joined by Clint Pilcher, Ph.D., who leads the Technical Knowledge Solutions Team at Corteva Agriscience. We’ll also be hearing from North Central Iowan farmer Randy Madden. Randy offers a unique perspective not only as a producer but also from his experience working with Monsanto as part of their global production team after earning his PhD in seed physiology. He shares that despite high local demand for corn, the journey of continuous corn has certainly come with its own challenges. 

“ Journey is a very good word. I mean, it's obviously a trial and error and over the years we've added our own bulk anhydrous facility...Our high pH soils have proven to be real challenging in corn production as well and managing the insects like corn rootworm….The traits have made that much more achievable and sort of added tremendous value to continuous corn production system like we have now.” - Randy Madden

Scientists have been working on the corn rootworm problem for decades, but with every new solution, the insect continues to adapt. To drastically reduce populations, two steps will be critical including stewardship of the products that today have some efficacy against corn rootworm and getting everyone on the same page to be vigilant against this pest.

“ The most recent tool is RNAI…It is very effective in controlling the adult population, it will eventually kill the insect, but it's much more slow acting than the BTs in controlling that insect. And so you know that, in addition to adult beetle management, is still an effective way of controlling them.” - Clint Pilcher

A few takeaways from this episode: 

1. There is great significance in the concept of area wide management and how it can bring everyone together to control corn rootworm. It would be nice if all agronomic problems could be reduced to just a single product that solved them for good, but as we all know, that’s not how it works. Complex problems require more dynamic solutions. 
2. How impactful the RNAI technology is. Even though it’s not THE singular answer to corn rootworm, having a tool like this can be incredibly powerful if used properly and stewarded properly so that it remains viable for years to come. 
3. The importance of stewardship. It’s not just a buzzword, and Randy’s words really stuck with me: the industry needs to be doing more to make sure we are stewarding the products we have available to us today. Because as you just heard Clint say, any potential new solutions are going to take a LONG time to make their way onto the farm, and it’s going to take all of us in the industry doing our part to preserve what we have that still has some efficacy today. 

Agriscience Explained is brought to you by Corteva Agriscience and hosted by Tim Hammerich. This show is produced by Clint Pilcher, Rayda Krell and Ann Leonard. Jaime Hammerich and Grant Bolton edit these podcasts, and the music was composed by Dmitri Volkov. Subscribe for more Agriscience Explained: From Science to Solutions.

On today’s episode, we celebrate the end of our first full year of the podcast by taking a look back at some previous episodes in order to take a look forward into the future of agriscience. In the spirit of Agriscience Explained and the fact that we believe true ag innovation has to be farmer-led, we’ve invited an innovative farmer to join the show for this episode. 

Tim Nuss of Nuss Farms operates in Lodi, California. In addition to his day job on the farm, Tim also started a podcast called The Modern Acre with his brother Tyler about eight years ago. This weekly show that focuses on entrepreneurs in the ag industry also led them to launching something called AgList about a year ago. Tim is a great example of a farmer thinking differently about agricultural innovation. Our conversation connected very closely with several of our episodes we’ve done for this podcast this season.

“ A lot of farmers are in really challenging situations right now and they're exhausted with financials of the business and just getting through the year of really keeping yourself open to new ideas and having those conversations takes a lot of work and takes a mindset…You just have to keep that positive growth mindset and know that if you have a limited budget, like don't put innovation on the back burner. It still needs to be a part of the budget.” - Tim Nuss

Agriscience Explained hopes to not only emphasize innovation but to highlight that innovation doesn’t matter unless it can be applied. And in order to go from science to solution, effective communication has to happen. 

As any good entrepreneur does, beyond farming and beyond podcasting, Tim noticed an additional problem that needed a solution. Seeing this chaotic landscape of the ag biologicals market, Tim and his brother Tyler decided to launch a website called AgList. AgList helps farmers and agronomists filter through various biological products and find out what real users have to say about them. Companies pay to list their products on the platform so that they can be endorsed by customers who have firsthand experience with them. 

“ It's very hard for individual farmers to talk to a hundred different companies to see if their product works…. We just saw this as an opportunity where there's a lot of challenge to understand as a farmer what works for you. The landscape map is cool to look at, but it's really challenging….So kind of leveling the playing field, putting it on an independent platform to kind of be able to click through and understand what products are actually relevant for you.” - Tim Nuss

Previous Episodes Referenced: 

1. Agriscience Explained with Sam Eathington
2. Crucial Conversations About Biologicals in Agriculture
3. Unlocking Agriscience Innovation
4. Gene Editing: Pathway to Progress
5. Permanent Cover Crops Take Root
6. Science, Sustainability and the Art of Farming
7. Discovering Tomorrow’s Biotech Traits

Agriscience Explained is brought to you by Corteva Agriscience and hosted by Tim Hammerich. This show is produced by Clint Pilcher, Rayda Krell and Ann Leonard. Jaime Hammerich and Grant Bolton edit these podcasts, and the music was composed by Dmitri Volkov. Subscribe for more Agriscience Explained: From Science to Solutions.

 On today's episode: Why did we see so much southern rust in the 2025 corn crop? We talk about this foliar disease, where it comes from, the impact it had on the crop and what farmers can do to better manage it going forward. We'll also explore some fascinating agriscience happening that will give farmers better protection against crop diseases like southern rust in the future.

To guide us through all of this, we're talking to Mark Jeschke, agronomy manager supporting the Pioneer brand at Corteva Agriscience. Mark has been with the company for 18 years and is currently based in Johnston, Iowa. He also farms with his family in Northern Illinois. Also joining the show is Pioneer field agronomist Carl Joern. Carl saw a lot of southern rust this past growing season in his area of northwest Indiana and northeast Illinois. He works directly with farmers in his role as a field agronomist and focuses on making sure they can make the most profit from Pioneer products.

“ Southern rust can be scary, especially if you don't have experience with it and when you have environmental conditions that stack the deck in its favor. There are fields across the Midwest this year that got sprayed with a fungicide and in three weeks that corn crop looked dead. And folks are trying to consider how to manage for a disease and how you invest in a crop that doesn't look like it's invested back in your operation…Like anything in farming, how you manage your operation has an impact on how pathogens proliferate and how different weed species grow or don't grow on your farm.” - Carl Joern

And while this year was bad and was a learning experience for many people, it’s not a new disease. Mark Jeschke remembers starting to see it in 2016 and says it has shown up earlier and earlier in the last couple of years, creating a bigger management concern. This threat can become a huge issue, taking away yield and potential revenue at a time when margins are thin. But could some of the modern gene editing tools that we’ve talked about in previous episodes of this podcast potentially help reduce this risk? Jeschke definitely sees this as a possibility.

“ What our scientists have done is take multiple disease resistance genes and stack those all together. So you're delivering multiple genes for resistance to different diseases all at once…It's a concept that can be expanded going forward that can add more resistance genes to it…So it can be iterated and improved upon over the years. So that's very exciting.” - Mark Jeschke

A few takeaways from today's episode: 

1. A better understanding of southern rust: where it comes from, what causes it to spread and some management tips
2. For as sophisticated as modern farming is, there are curveballs every year. Sometimes the timing doesn’t work out to address them reactively. That’s why the work of agriscience innovation is never finished to create better solutions
3. Multi-disease resistance or the disease super locus is really an exciting development. This is a very real and timely example of where gene editing technology could address a problem that farmers have no way of knowing in advance if they need to prioritize. 

Agriscience Explained is brought to you by Corteva Agriscience and hosted by Tim Hammerich. This show is produced by Clint Pilcher, Rayda Krell and Ann Leonard. Jaime Hammerich and Grant Bolton edit these podcasts, and the music was composed by Dmitri Volkov. Subscribe for more Agriscience Explained: From Science to Solutions.