Using the whole breadth of varietal breeding techniques to meet the specific requirements of every market

Maïsadour Semences has 40 years' worth of ongoing experience in research and innovation, providing solutions for farmers and industrial producers. More than ever before, exploring and using all varietal breeding technologies is vital to respond to each market's specific needs (conventional, organic, GMO, etc.) and keep the impact of agricultural production on our environment to a minimum.

In addition to the technologies presented below, other GM and non-GM plant solutions are also available or currently being researched with our partners, providing the best possible responses to the challenges society is setting for farming in terms of nutrition, health and energy.

GM solutions

Maïsadour Semences is convinced that genetically modified crops constitute a viable use of technology. As a result, a molecular marking laboratory has been set up and close relationships established with various partner suppliers of latest-generation genetic events. This will enable us to offer converted versions of our range's showcase hybrids to interested users.

Already, for maize and more particularly Event MON810, GMO marketing has already started. This technology offers numerous advantages:

MON810 avantages :

• The plant is self-protecting, which allows a decrease in the use of insecticides required on the maize crops during growth
• Reduced impact on insect life: plant-boring insects only absorb the insecticide if they actually attack the plant
• Event MON810 is used in Spain, a pioneer country within Europe. To date, no food toxicity has been recorded with respect to this development.
• In the event of high levels of infestation, this genetic tolerance maintains farmers' incomes.
• Since there are no wild species in Europe which can cross-breed with this maize, the risk of dissemination of this genetic development in the wild is virtually nil.

Alternative techniques

In addition to GM solutions, Maïsadour Semences has also developed two innovative concepts in partnership with BASF.

The Clearfield® concept for sunflowers
Maïsadour Semences have crossbred elite lines with a sunflower which is naturally tolerant to a herbicide. This technique, developed as the Clearfield® concept, does not use any genetically modified plants. The advantages are twofold:

• Protecting sunflower plants from broom rape. In cases of severe infestation, broom rape can completely destroy sunflower crops. This is the case in countries around the Black Sea (Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, etc.) and in Andalusia.
• This active material enables weeds to be removed from sunflower crops. In some situations, it can also restrict the growth of weeds which are particularly difficult to destroy using other products.

New DUO System® maize technology
As with the concept outlined above, Maïsadour Semences also uses traditional breeding methods to provide maize hybrids which are tolerant to a particular herbicidal family.

This technology offers farmers a high-performance solution to control the development of difficult to control weeds in their rotations.

Further details
Our core beliefs
Why it is important to protect seeds