High resistance to pests: the new CR+ varieties
Innovate Productivity!
Digital innovations for excellent consulting
The Business Unit Sugarbeet is expanding its consulting expertise digitally with a growing portfolio of varieties.
Powerful innovations from KWS’ breeding activities continue to boost productivity in sugarbeet cultivation. Outstanding current examples are CONVISO® SMART, CR+ or – a very recent one – tolerance against yellowing viruses in the shape of Virus Yellows Protect.
KWS offers its customers top-class sugarbeet seed – and delivers on its pledge to provide them with expert personal advice on all matters relating to cultivation of this crop. To make sure that we stay on the same wavelength as our customers, who are digitizing their processes at their farms more and more, we have to rethink the consulting strategies that have proven successful to date and integrate digital offerings systematically.
“Innovate Productivity!”
This slogan stands for KWS’ holistic approach of providing new breeding traits in conjunction with smart cultivation management for agricultural practice. Only that will enable us to boost productivity in farming lastingly and so achieve more output with less input.
In order to actively drive digitization in agriculture and support the industry worldwide with our own digital offerings to ensure ideal cultivation of KWS’ varieties, we have to create the foundations for that now. And that will help us to continue achieving what has been our core mission since 1856: Seeding the Future. |
What does the International Agro Service have in its digital consulting pipeline?
Cercospora is the major leaf spot disease in sugarbeet. It can cause large financial losses. Systematic control of this fungal disease is vital. Forecast models are often used to determine the ideal time to treat it and thus optimize management of the disease.
With its new CR+ varieties, KWS’ breeding team has heralded in a new round in the battle against this disease. CR+ varieties boast a very high yield and are far more resistant to this pest: The start of infestation is delayed and its progression is slowed down significantly. CR+ varieties respond so ruggedly that the use of pesticides can be reduced. Conventional treatment regimes no longer apply to CR+ varieties.
So that the infestation’s progression and the ideal time to treat it can also be reliably predicted for CR+ varieties, specific adaptation of the forecast model for CR+ varieties is a must. Extensive trials over several years are being conducted and intensive field data collected to enable that. That permits tailoring of the models to CR+, with the objective of providing customers with reliable field-specific recommendations.
CONVISO® SMART supersign
Our latest innovation, Virus Yellows Protect, offers the first varieties that are tolerant to yellowing viruses in sugarbeet. Yellowing viruses are mainly transmitted by the green peach aphid. Digital insect monitoring will play a crucial role in integrated combating of the yellowing virus complex in the future. KWS has laid the foundation for digital consulting here with its collaboration with the Danish start-up FaunaPhotonics.
Symptoms of yellowing viruses in field trials
The CONVISO® SMART system offers effective weed control in sugarbeet cultivation and is also well-tolerated by beet. The combination of SMART KWS varieties and the ALS-inhibiting herbicide CONVISO® ONE from Bayer is now successfully established in 25 countries.
Particular emphasis is placed on correct application so as to ensure sustainable and long-term use of the system. The focus here is on the right time to use the herbicide and the differences between the SMART varieties and conventional varieties. Apart from that, the issues of bolting management and integrated weed control play an important role.
Consequently, a stewardship concept has been developed for CONVISO® SMART that defines objectives and requirements for its proper application. Training and consulting are core elements. Intensive training of KWS colleagues who pass on their broad know-how to farmers who use CONVISO® SMART is the basis for success.
In order to provide farmers who use CONVISO® SMART with extensive training using digital technologies, we developed the CONVISO® SMART tutorials last year, for example – and sped up doing so, not least in the wake of COVID-19. These short videos give a vivid explanation of individual stewardship aspects, such as herbicide application or control of bolting. The tutorials have been adapted to the needs of the country in question by local colleagues from the KWS Agro Service. They are published on the website or on social media channels and have met with an excellent response among farmers.
Alongside them, the myKWS app offers content relating to the CONVISO® SMART system. Farmers can access the CONVISO® user manual or tips on combating specific types of weeds tailored to their country, for instance.
Development of forecast models is also a core element of excellent digital consulting for the CONVISO® SMART system. Growth models identify the ideal time for applying herbicide, i.e. when the weeds competing with the sugarbeet have reached the stage when they can be combated most effectively. That is why we are currently developing the CONVISO® Timer. The growth of the indicator weed white goosefoot (Chenopodium album) is used as the basis for recommending the ideal time to apply the CONVISO® ONE herbicide. |
Digitally connected
International Agro Service for sugarbeet – Networked collaboration
So that new types of variety can unfold their full potential in practice, the cultivation systems also have to be rethought and developed further. That is done by the International Agro Service. It forges a bridge between breeding and agricultural practice. Breeding is supported by Agro Service conducting cultivation management trials – often well before market launch of varieties. Once the results can be used in practice, cultivation and consulting strategies are defined in coordination with the local Agro Services.
Communication concepts for customers are developed in close cooperation with Marketing.
The entire Agro Service network comprises around 40 colleagues from just about all countries where sugarbeet is grown.
Core competence
All these models involve a lot of development work, programming them is time-consuming, and they have to fed continuously with data. However, these digital consulting tools that supply farmers with forecasts for their fields are vital to excellent consulting at the field level. |
Contact:
Christina Wellhausen
christina.wellhausen@kws.com
Contact:
Carsten Stibbe
carsten.stibbe@kws.com
Contact:
Julia Wießner
julia.wiessner@kws.com
© KWS SAAT SE & Co. KGaA 2025
