BASF and The Louisiana State University Agricultural Center announced the expansion of an agreement that will bring new herbicide tolerance genetics and improved traits to herbicide tolerant rice in the CLEARFIELD* Production System.

This agreement expands the current public/private cooperative research efforts that began between American Cyanamid, now a part of BASF Agricultural Products (NYSE: BF - news), and LSU to provide improved rice production technology to rice growers in the U.S. and around the world. When these new, recently developed, herbicide tolerance traits, are bred into commercial varieties they will provide rice growers in key rice producing regions with greater weed control and rice production flexibility. The new herbicide tolerance traits, as well as those in current CLEARFIELD varieties, were developed using non-GMO technology and do not involve the insertion of any new genetic material.

"We're very pleased to have this new agreement with BASF to continue our cooperative development program,'' says Dr. Larry Rogers, vice chancellor and director Louisiana State University Agricultural Center. "As the technology advances and new and improved traits become available it is extremely important that we maintain our strong relationships with our collaborators so we can bring these new traits to growers as quickly as possible and continue to support the rice producers of Louisiana.''

"The expansion of our relationship with LSU will improve our ability to continue expanding the CLEARFIELD Production System for rice into key tropical rice producing regions of the world,'' says Tony Arnold, vice president of Global Strategic Marketing for BASF Agricultural Products. "We're committed to providing farmers around the world with new, innovative ways of optimizing their yield. This will greatly accelerate the development of new rice varieties.''

Dr. Tim Croughan, with the Louisiana Agricultural Experiment Station discovered the herbicide tolerance traits in CLEARFIELD rice presently in production. Dr. Croughan initially identified two rice plants with tolerance to imidazolinone herbicides. This trait has been bred into high yielding varieties and into advanced lines by Dr. Steve Linscombe, also with LSU. CLEARFIELD rice varieties are currently being increased and should be available to growers in the U.S. in limited amounts by 2001. Dr. Croughan also developed the new imidazolinone tolerance traits covered in this agreement.

The CLEARFIELD Production System combines advanced genetics with custom designed imidazolinone herbicides to provide the best-integrated solutions for crop production needs. The imidazolinones are a unique family of crop protection products for weed control that were developed by Cyanamid Agricultural Products Research Division. The imidazolinones work on an enzyme that is present in plants but not in mammals, birds, fish or insects. This selectivity makes the imidazolinones non-toxic to humans and wildlife while providing outstanding
weed control.

BASF is a return-focused global company which strives for value-added growth, especially in the sectors of chemistry, health and nutrition as well as oil and gas. The company's product line encompasses high-value-added chemicals, plastics, colorants, dispersions, automotive and industrial coatings, crop protection agents, pharmaceuticals, fine chemicals, crude oil and natural gas. With sales of U.S. $29.5 billion in 1999 and 105,000 employees, BASF is one of the world's leading chemical companies. BASF can also be found on the Internet at http://www.basf.com. 
CLEARFIELD is a trademark of BASF 

Company news release
N2848