S&W Seed Company, a global agricultural technology company, has officially announced the expansion of its novel and proprietary sorghum trait technology portfolio, bringing into the mix an all-new Double Team Forage Sorghum. According to certain reports, the stated product is meant to give forage sorghum growers an over-the-top, non-GMO, grassy weed control option. To understand the significance of such a development, we must acknowledge that, while corn, soybean, and cotton growers have benefited from weed control technologies, sorghum growers have been historically limited by an absence of post-emerge grass control. This, in turn, has impacted their overall acreage and profitability. Fortunately enough, S&W’s Double Team solution is out to solve that very problem. Making this development all the more important is concerned with how the given Double Team solution has already been through a flurry of tests, tests where it was successful in delivering dramatically improved levels of yields, leading to higher satisfaction and acceptance throughout the growers community.
“Double Team is revolutionizing the sorghum industry in the same way that other weed control technologies have enhanced yields for crops such as corn, soybeans and cotton,” said Mark Herrmann, CEO of S&W Seed Company.
The introduction of Double Team Forage Sorghum delivers a rather interesting follow-up to S&W’s decision to launch Double Team Grain Sorghum back in 2021. You see, since the stated launch, the component has quickly become the number one grass control trait in grain sorghum on the market. Building further upon that success, the company now expects the material to be planted on more than 10% of all grain sorghum acres in 2024, nearly double the acres planted in the previous year. All in all, this puts it on the pathway to match herbicide solutions in other critical crops, including corn, wheat and soybeans.
“Double Team provides superior grass weed control, protecting yields under high weed pressure,” said Herrmann. “Grower surveys show that it consistently delivers a positive return on investment for farmers, helping to boost overall profitability.”
Alongside Double Team Forage Sorghum, S&W also plans on bringing to the fore a Prussic Acid Free (PAF) trait at some point during the year 2025. In practice, PAF will basically eliminate the risk of prussic acid poisoning in grazing livestock, which on its part, will extend the grazing season and provide growers peace of mind. But what makes the whole mechanism viable on a more actionable note? Well, the answer talks to how sorghum plants with the PAF trait are known for containing a mutation which prevents the plants from producing dhurrin, the precursor to Prussic Acid. To put things into perspective, Prussic Acid can actually prove to be poisonous to all mammals, and therefore, causes annual challenges up to death to livestock producers globally.
“With the introduction of Double Team Forage Sorghum, S&W is now able to provide forage growers with the same enhanced return on their investments that grain sorghum growers have experienced,” said Herrmann.
