Production Blog

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (DTN) -- Farmers are always looking for new tools to add to their pesticide toolboxes, whether for the control of stubborn weeds, insect infestations or the latest diseases.

To learn what it takes to bring these new solutions to market, DTN/Progressive Farmer recently visited with Matt Plitt, president and CEO of Valent U.S.A. based in San Ramon, California. Here's what he had to say in a Q&A about the company's direction and philosophy, coming additions to its portfolio and initiatives in sustainability. (Editor's note: Some responses were edited for clarity and brevity.)

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DTN/PROGRESSIVE FARMER: For those unfamiliar, who is Valent U.S.A.?

MATT PLITT: Valent U.S.A. is a subsidiary of Sumitomo Chemical Co. created in 1988. Since that time, we've served Canada, Mexico and the United States for Sumitomo, representing their portfolio of crop-solution products. We also represent our sister company, Valent BioSciences, and its biorational products, as well as MGK's (McLaughlin Gormley King Co.) botanical products that go into a lot of the specialty markets, especially those in the organic segment.

DTN/PF: Valent maintains a portfolio of products serving commodity row crops as well as specialty crops. What do you see as the advantages of having a presence in both sectors? Are there disadvantages?

PLITT: Much like the growers that we serve, diversity is a strategic intent that we have as a company. Having a balanced portfolio with specialty markets and major row crops does give us risk mitigation. Typically, what we'll see is that when the commodity crops are facing challenges, the specialty crops may be a little bit stronger and then vice versa. There are benefits in the diversity of crops and our diverse geographic footprint.

When we do discovery work, we look at specialty crops. As you walk through the greenhouses and look at what's going on from a screening perspective, you can see cucurbits, rice, vine crops -- crops that typically you don't see a lot of our competitors do discovery research on. It allows us to take more of an R&D and discovery approach in crops that are coast to coast.

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DTN/PF: Are there things you learn in one sector that you've successfully applied in the other to the benefit of farmers? Can you share an example?

PLITT: Absolutely. If you go back to the early 2000s when we launched flumioxazin, under our Valor brand, into row crops such as cotton, soybeans and peanuts, seeing the activity and the residual weed control in those crops, we could see a benefit of moving that active ingredient into permanent crops like orchards. So, we advanced that product line, gained some new registrations and launched a product called Chateau that is now commonly used in our specialty markets for weed control.

Conversely, we're doing the same thing right now as we look at some of our plant growth regulators. We know how well they work in apples and in other pome fruit crops. We're doing research on taking that technology and expertise and bringing it to the row-crop space where we haven't seen great success with plant growth regulators outside of some of the cotton defoliants.

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DTN/PF: What's the current R&D focus at Valent for row crops?

PLITT: We have two primary research farms that are focused on the row-crop space. We have the Midwest Agricultural Research Center in Seymour, Illinois. That's an 80-acre farm that really is focused heavily on corn, soybeans and our seed protection lineup. We have also done some work with Valent BioSciences on that farm, looking very closely at soil health with the mycorrhizae technologies that were acquired several years back.

We have a 250-acre farm in Leland, Mississippi, which is our Mid-South Agricultural Research Center. That farm has been with Valent since its inception and does a lot of work with corn, soybeans, cotton and rice. We do work on some specialty product crops there because the humidity and temperatures are favorable for disease pressure. It also serves as our primary facility for our seed treatment R&D. We do a lot of formulation work there. We spend a lot of energy looking at different equipment with different coating levels and the best way to apply product to the seed for optimal results. We also have a farm in Yuma, Arizona, that we utilize for specialty crop research to support Valent Sustainable Solutions.

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DTN/PF: Valent made a big marketing push to increase its profile among row-crop farmers with the introduction of Maverick corn herbicide a few seasons ago. What's next, both in corn and soybeans?

PLITT: We have an exciting line up of seed treatments that are coming with our new fungicide, Indiflin (active ingredient inpyrfluxam). We have a brand lineup called Zeltera that's in the process of being registered with the EPA. Our goal is to have those products in growers' hands very soon so they can get the benefit of not only the disease protection, but also start to utilize some of our insect protection packages.

We've also submitted a registration for a new PPO (protoporphyrinogen oxidase) herbicide that is fast acting and controls a wide spectrum of weeds, including species that have developed resistance to PPO herbicides. We'll be referring to the new active ingredient as Rapidicil and bringing it out under different brand names depending on the space we're going into. Our plan is to initially launch that as a preplant burndown upon registration. We've also partnered with Bayer CropScience on their HT5 trait that will have an over-the-top tolerance for this chemistry.

In 2025, we're really focused on what we can do with Maverick in corn and how we continue to grow and support growers with our Fierce technology. The Fierce lineup has several different mixture combinations to help soybean farmers be successful in their production. We believe preemergent soybean weed control is going to be critical as we go into 2025.

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DTN/PF: There's been tremendous growth in the biologicals product space in recent years. As a company known for crop protection, how has Valent U.S.A. positioned itself in this space?

PLITT: Sumitomo Chemical acquired Valent BioSciences in 2000. And the company has a long commitment to R&D and science in the area of biologicals. The most recent acquisition by Valent BioSciences has been the FBSciences's portfolio of biostimulant technologies. So Valent BioSciences has integrated that into their business, and they're actively promoting and selling biostimulants into the marketplace and putting a lot of R&D and science behind that.

In the area of biocontrols, which is what Valent U.S.A. represents, we have consistent research trials, consistent data and really leaned heavily on that side of the portfolio with true science for growers. For example, if you're looking for biocontrol of insects, DiPel and XenTari are two longstanding, high-performing, well-known BTs for Lepidoptera control. Growers benefit in the specialty crops because of the MRLs (maximum residue limits), the reentry time and preharvest intervals. I think over time, we're going to continue to see more biocontrol products move into the row-crop space for some of the same beneficial reasons.

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DTN/PF: How is Valent preparing for the expanded use of targeted spray technologies such as John Deere's See & Spray? How does it affect the company's product strategies?

PLITT: We've been fortunate to partner with John Deere to look at some of our chemistry through the See & Spray technology. We were able to look at some trials this past year with Rapidicil, the new PPO chemistry, which were very impressive.

The piece for us is we've got to step back and understand better how that works so that we have the right formulations. We also need the right go-to-market strategy because it's a very different value proposition to the grower.

If you look at any of your preemergence herbicides, you're going with broadcast sprays, which means you need to project and predict your volumes as part of the manufacturing strategy. As this technology evolves, instead of looking at things from a volume perspective, you're looking at it more from an acre and performance perspective. That's why I think how formulation development partners with targeted spray technologies to get optimum weed control, without a broadcast spray, is going to be critically important. It's no longer going to be around volume. It's going to be around how do you get optimum performance out of whatever volume is going to be required on that acre?

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DTN/PF: The issue of sustainability seems to be a universal concern in agriculture. How does Valent approach sustainability?

PLITT: We're fortunate in that our parent company, Sumitomo Chemical, has been committed to sustainability for over a hundred years. We have a global initiative to be carbon neutral by 2050. There is a slogan that's used commonly in Japan called "Jiri Rita," which is about being in harmony with both society and business. How do you make sure that whatever you're doing from a business perspective is there to also benefit society?

We have taken that same mindset. We've instilled it in our businesses in Canada, Mexico and the United States. And that shows up not only with how we how we engage in our corporate setting with sustainable approaches using solar technology or using green formulations, recycling, etc., but also how we want to manage and evaluate our product line.

We've done some work internally developing sustainable solutions criteria. These criteria have been validated by a third party, SCS Global, looking at how we take eight different attributes, or benefits for growers, and apply that to our products in our portfolio today and even those in our pipeline. We rate it as it relates to people, planet and productivity. That ties back to an overall score of how our products fit into sustainable production practices and regenerative agriculture. We believe there's a real benefit to what we provide in an integrated portfolio to the grower. We have access to botanical chemistry, biorational chemistry and synthetic chemistry. Collectively, that integrated portfolio should help growers be successful but also be able to tell a story to their consumer base around sustainable agricultural practices.

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DTN/PF: Anything else you'd like to add?

PLITT: We are committed to growers in that row-crop space. I mentioned Indiflin as a platform for our new seed protection lineup. We're also working on foliar mixtures to develop a new fungicide mixture base to support growers who are battling some of the biggest disease challenges in corn, soybeans and wheat. And then our new platform, with Rapidicil, we will be combining that PPO technology with our flumioxazin brands and our pyroxisulfone brands to have widespread mixtures that are going to help growers really have a great option for burndown technology with residual control and then eventually with the HT5 trait over the top. Those are significant investments.

The challenge is always the regulatory process because today with the Endangered Species Act, there's a lot of things that are still undefined. We're navigating that closely with CropLife America and with the EPA to make sure that we are meeting federal requirements while still getting products to growers as quickly and as efficiently as possible. One of the biggest challenges we have is the regulatory pathway, the cost to discovery development and getting things to market. But we're still committed to do that, and we're excited about the future and what we can bring in new technology.

Jason Jenkins can be reached at jason.jenkins@dtn.com

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