EMD Crop BioScience announces its new corporate name and logo. Following Nitragin’s acquisition of Agribiotics, the two have combined as one entity now known as EMD Crop BioScience. EMD Crop BioScience is a subsidiary of Merck KGaA’s North American EMD Group and is recognized as a core business focusing on plant health research and commercialization of cropenhancing technologies.

“We are looking forward to continuing to provide growers with our successful line of early plant health products while introducing innovative new technologies to the market during this exciting time at EMD Crop BioScience,” says President Tom Winkofske.

In March 2006, Nitragin Holding, Inc. acquired Cambridge, Ontario-based Agribiotics Inc. The acquisition resulted in several additions to Nitragin’s portfolio of crop-enhancing technologies and the ability to commercialize a variety of yield-increasing technologies in a number of markets. The home offices and manufacturing facilities of the heritage organizations in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Cambridge, Ontario, will continue operations under the name EMD Crop BioScience. As a result of the integration, EMD Crop BioScience will enjoy an increased field presence in both Canada and the United States to better serve their customer base.

As result of its commitment to leadership in the commercialization of crop-enhancing technologies, EMD Crop BioScience has produced a number of revolutionary products that focus on early plant health. EMD Crop BioScience anticipates the introduction of crop-enhancing products that contain the patented LCO Promoter Technology™, a natural, biological molecule, and other technologies for use on corn, cotton, wheat and tomatoes. Several other crops will follow in the upcoming years.

“LCO Promoter Technology is an effective, innovative technology that is producing an increase in early plant health and yield in a number of legume crops,” says Scott Fleetwood, Ph.D., Vice President of Sales and Marketing for EMD Crop BioScience. “Commercializing this technology for non-legumes will be a very significant stride in early plant health technology and EMD Crop BioScience is proud to lead this effort.”

“As our world continues to grow, it becomes increasingly important for growers to receive maximum yield from every acre that is planted,” says Winkofske. “Everyone at EMD Crop BioScience is committed to partnering with farmers to make products that enable them to be as productive as possible.”

Originally founded as the Nitragin Company in 1898 after a Milwaukee entrepreneur purchased rights to a commercial process for the production of nitrogen-fixing rhizobia. Nitragin remained privately owned until 1982. In 1991 Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany purchased the business. Now headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, EMD Crop BioScience is committed to advancing crop-enhancing technologies and making these products available to growers worldwide.

Merck is a global pharmaceutical and chemical enterprise with sales of € 5.9 billion in 2005, a history that began in 1668, and a future shaped by 29,958 employees in 55 countries. The 1917 the U.S. subsidiary Merck & Co. was expropriated and has been an independent company ever since.