Do seed companies restrict academic research on commercial seed products?
DuPont business Pioneer Hi-Bred encourages agronomic and comparative yield testing to ensure Pioneer is delivering the outstanding value growers expect from Pioneer® brand products. Pioneer allows growers, academicians and competitors to purchase commercial seed products for comparative sample plot tests without any additional agreement beyond the regular bag tag and invoice. Further, Pioneer has a standing multi-year agreement with most major agricultural universities which allows the expedient transfer of commercial seed products for agronomic testing. These blanket agreements allow agronomic testing – and unrestricted publishing of results – on traits observable in the field, such as yield. In recent years, Pioneer has put nearly 200 product transfer and evaluation agreements in place with university and public sector researchers to facilitate seed transfer. Pioneer employs more than 11 fulltime positions to fulfill external sample requests for Pioneer seed products. Pioneer also pa
