Thursday, November 16, 2006 - 10:30 AM
317-7

Field Performance of Herculex® RW and Herculex® XTRA: Novel Bt Products for Corn.

J. Edward King, Paul Neese, Jeff Edwards, and Gary Thompson. Dow AgroSciences, 9330 Zionsville Road, Indianapolis, IN 46268

This presentation will provide an update on field testing for Herculex RW and Herculex XTRA, primarily with results on western and northern corn rootworm.  Herculex® RW Rootworm Protection is a new transgenic corn trait (event DAS-59122-7) developed through a collaborative agreement between Dow AgroSciences and Pioneer Hi-Bred International. Herculex RW is the first insect protection trait to co-express unique binary proteins (Cry34Ab1 and Cry35Ab1) from a new strain of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), and provides high levels of protection against larval stages of major corn rootworm pests, including western corn rootworm (Diabrotica virgifera virgifera), northern corn rootworm (Diabrotica barberi), and Mexican corn rootworm (Diabrotica virgifera zeae).  Herculex RW received full U.S. registration in 2005 and was commercially available in select corn hybrids in 2006.    
In 2006, Dow AgroSciences and Pioneer also launched Herculex® XTRA Insect Protection.  Herculex XTRA is a combined trait product, developed through the use of conventional breeding, to bring together TC1507 (Herculex® I Insect Protection, expressing the Cry1F Bt protein) and DAS-59122-7 (Herculex RW, expressing the Cry34Ab1 and Cry35Ab1 binary Bt protein) in a corn hybrid. Corn hybrids with Herculex XTRA currently provide the broadest spectrum of in-plant insect protection