News
From the world of KWS
Overview
Climate change
Artificial storm
KWS is using helicopters to test the standing ability of corn varieties. The helicopters have been hired specifically for the trials and fly over the corn fields to simulate storms and other extreme weather events that can damage the growing crops and impair the harvest.
The increase in extreme weather events due to climate change means that standing ability is becoming an increasingly important quality, and not only in corn cultivation. In addition to yield, standing ability is one of the key criteria for farmers when selecting a variety. Breeding progress has already helped improve this trait significantly and reduce the proportion of the crop that suffers lodging. |
Congratulations: Our employer branding captures first place with the “Either-and” campaign.
Best employer branding
Our image and recruiting campaign “Either-and” took first place in the “Best Employer Branding Campaigns” category for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) at the 2022 Trendence Awards. There were a total of seventy entries in this category. The multichannel campaign aims to position KWS as an attractive employer in Berlin. Another goal is to build awareness of the company among the target group, namely talents in administrative vocations. The message: You don’t have to compromise at KWS. The campaign’s first phase (December 2021 to April 2022) generated 2.9 million views in Berlin. Because of the initial positive results, the campaign is continuing this fiscal year.
Winners were chosen in a total of eleven categories at the Trendence Awards. This year, for the first time, there was a distinction between corporate groups and small and medium-sized enterprises. SMEs often cannot compete with the high-budget, resource-intensive projects of large companies such as Deutsche Bahn, Deloitte, Douglas, Porsche or REWE. |
Turning data into services
The interdisciplinary project “Connected Seeds” has been launched. Colleagues from Data Infrastructure, Data Modeling, Research & Development, the Business Units, the Field Explorer Team and the Digital Farming Team are involved in it. The kickoff in November strengthened the understanding that “Connected Seeds” is first and foremost a pipeline which enables KWS to leverage the data it frequently generates or to collect it in a more pinpointed manner in order to develop its own independent models and services – services that only breeders can put on the market together with their products. |
Augmented reality: How cereals are made into vodka
The award-winning distillery In The Welsh Wind has grown, harvested and malted the KWS SASSY (barley) and KWS TAYO (rye) varieties to create – along with a wheat-based liquor – its latest product: Three Grain Vodka. The distillery is so pleased with the results that it plans to use only cereals from KWS for its products. Our Digital Innovation Accelerator has come up with something special for end consumers: The bottle’s label can be scanned via a smartphone app. Augmented reality then tells the whole story of how our cereals were turned into a unique liquor. |
KWS starts licensing via TraitWay
A number of breeding companies of different sizes, including KWS, aim to jointly establish a licensing platform for agricultural crops. The Agricultural Crop Licensing Platform (ACLP) is intended to offer solutions in order to strike a balance between variety protection and patents – similar to the existing licensing platform for vegetables (ILP). The ten companies in the working group are still discussing the terms of the agreement. As one of the main drivers behind the initiative, KWS decided in October to launch its own, smaller solution in advance so as to send a signal to the other companies in the initiative. KWS TraitWay focuses on native traits in Europe. These are traits that occur naturally in the plant and have been developed by means of an essentially biological process such as crossing and selection, i.e. conventional breeding. This move also underlines our position on appropriate patenting and sharing of innovations. |
Live DNA extraction
New Scientist Live in London is one of the world’s largest science-related events, with many different stages, presentations, speakers and information stands enabling participants to discover new things and share ideas and experience. KWS was there at the Farmer’s Weekly stand in October 2022, where the theme was “Food and Agriculture.” Our team demonstrated live tomato DNA extraction and took part in various talks and workshops on stage. |
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