Home ScienceSGS Canada Crop Science Now Authorized for Bayer C...

Science⭐ Featured

SGS Canada Crop Science Now Authorized for Bayer Corn Trait Testing in Canada

New Canadian-based corn trait testing includes herbicide bioassays and ELISA trait testing, helping seed corn companies avoid cross-border delays and improve turnaround time. In seed production, where timing and certainty […] The post SGS Canada Crop Science Now Authorized for Bayer Corn Trait Testing in Canada appeared first on Seed World .

6 April 2026 at 01:40 pm

1 views

The Canadian seed industry is set to experience a significant shift as SGS Canada Crop Science has been authorized to conduct Bayer corn trait testing in Canada. This development, effective from January 2026, offers seed companies a validated Canadian option for corn trait testing, reducing reliance on cross-border shipments to the United States.

In seed production, where timing and certainty are essential, trait verification and diagnostics are critical to ensuring quality and maintaining market confidence. Holly Gelech, Senior Business Development Manager at SGS Canada Crop Science, expressed excitement about this development, highlighting the long-standing need for a Canadian solution.

For years, Canadian seed companies have relied on shipping corn samples to U.S. laboratories for diagnostics and trait testing. While this pathway has been well-established, recent challenges have become more apparent. Clients have reported issues such as extended transit delays, limited visibility into sample status, and samples being returned to sender. When trait testing results are needed to make timely decisions, even minor disruptions can lead to significant operational problems and uncertainty.

The new authorization from Bayer Crop Science allows SGS Canada Crop Science to provide corn trait testing in two main areas: herbicide bioassay testing (grow-out testing) and ELISA trait testing.

Herbicide bioassay testing measures herbicide resistance through a controlled grow-out test. In this process, seeds are grown in an herbicide solution on media, and seedlings are evaluated after a set period—typically a seven-day grow-out—to determine resistance levels. This method provides a reliable assessment of herbicide tolerance, which is crucial for farmers and seed companies looking to optimize crop performance and yield.

ELISA (Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay) trait testing is another critical component of the new authorization. This technique uses antibodies to detect the presence or absence of specific traits in corn samples. It is a rapid and sensitive method for verifying key traits, such as herbicide resistance or insect resistance, ensuring that seed companies can produce high-quality, consistent products.

By conducting corn trait testing in Canada, seed companies can avoid the delays and uncertainties associated with cross-border shipments. This development not only improves turnaround time but also enhances the reliability and efficiency of the Canadian seed industry.

The authorization of SGS Canada Crop Science for Bayer corn trait testing in Canada marks a significant milestone for the Canadian seed industry. It provides a validated, domestic alternative to traditional U.S. testing pathways, offering seed companies greater control over their testing processes and reducing the risks associated with international logistics.

As the Canadian seed industry continues to grow and innovate, this new capability will undoubtedly play a pivotal role in maintaining its competitiveness and ensuring the production of high-quality, reliable seeds. With the ability to conduct herbicide bioassay and ELISA trait testing locally, Canadian seed companies can now confidently meet the demands of the market while minimizing operational challenges and delays.

Source: Seed World

The largest orbital compute cluster is open for business | TechCrunch

Kepler Communications is flying 40 GPUs in Earth orbit. And its latest customer is Sophia Space.

14 Apr

‘Mideast conflict poses risks to Philippines growth’

The Philippine economy is expected to grow at a faster pace of 5.3 percent this year from last year’s 4.4 percent but the ongoing Middle East conflict is seen to pose risks, according to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Plus 3 Macroeconomic Research Office.

7 Apr

AFBI welcomes DUP representatives to its research farm at Hillsborough

The Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) welcomed a number of DUP representatives to its research farm at Hillsborough on Friday.

7 Apr

A simple way to get more value from metrics

We spent one day 1 building a system that immediately found a mid 7 figure optimization (which ended up shipping). In the first year, we shipped mid 8 figures per year worth of cost savings as a result. The key feature this system introduces is the ability to query metrics data across all hosts and all services and over any period of time (since inception), so we've called it LongTermMetrics (LTM) internally since I like boring, descriptive, names. This got started when I was looking for a starter project that would both help me understand the Twitter infra stack and also have some easily quantifiable value. Andy Wilcox suggested looking at JVM survivor space utilization for some large services. If you're not familiar with what survivor space is, you can think of it as a configurable, fixed-size buffer, in the JVM (at least if you use the GC algorithm that's default at Twitter). At the time, if you looked at a random large services, you'd usually find that either: The buffer was too small, resulting in poor performance, sometimes catastrophically poor when under high load. The buffer was too large, resulting in wasted memory, i.e., wasted money. But instead of looking at random services, there's no fundamental reason that we shouldn't be able to query all services and get a list of which services have room for improvement in their configuration, sorted by performance degradation or cost savings. And if we write that query for JVM survivor space, this also

7 Apr

Accelerating Mathematical and Scientific Discovery with Gemini Deep Think

Research papers point to the growing impact of Deep Think across fields

7 Apr

Gemini 3 Deep Think: Advancing science, research and engineering

Our most specialized reasoning mode is now updated to solve modern science, research and engineering challenges.

7 Apr

Context Engineering for Coding Agents

The number of options we have to configure and enrich a coding agent’s context has exploded over the past few months. Claude Code is leading the charge with innovations in this space, but other coding assistants are quickly following suit. Powerful context engineering is becoming a huge part of the developer experience of these tools. Birgitta Böckeler explains the current state of context configuration features, using Claude Code as an example. more…

7 Apr

What does less protein and nitrogen mean for methane?

Does feeding less protein to cows over a longer period not only reduce nitrogen losses, but also affect methane emissions? Researchers at Wageningen University & Research (WUR) investigated this in a multi-year study with dairy cows, funded by the Vereniging Diervoederonderzoek Nederland (VDN), the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Nature (LVVN), and […] The post What does less protein and nitrogen mean for methane? appeared first on Agriland.ie .

7 Apr

Second’s Bark Boasts New era of Bitcoin Payments, drawing in former Blockstream developers

Bitcoin Magazine Second’s Bark Boasts New era of Bitcoin Payments, drawing in former Blockstream developers Second, the Bitcoin development lab founded by ex-Blockstream executives including CEO Steven Roose and CTO Erik De Smedt, has unveiled Bark — its custom Ark protocol implementation promising self-custodial payments that are faster and cheaper than Lightning channels. This post Second’s Bark Boasts New era of Bitcoin Payments, drawing in former Blockstream developers first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt .

7 Apr

'Morale boost': Nasa carries out Moon mission during tough year for science

HOUSTON — As the four Artemis astronauts approached a high point of their lunar mission -- getting slung around the far side of the Moon -- National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) staffers crowded into Houston's famed mission control room Monday for a team photo.

7 Apr