Hobby Out of Control (Older Story, Still True!)

Debbie (co-owner of BASS and Ed’s lovely wife) recently stumbled across this article again.  Originally published in the August 2012 issue of The Progressive Farmer, this article was a bit of a blast from the past when rereading it 12 years later.  Much of it is still very true, and some of it is bigger.

Baumgartner’s ultimate goal is to help feed the world with non-GMO corn hybrids that yield on par with GMOs. He wants non-GMOs to have substantial resistance to heat, drought and pests, much as GMOs do. And, he wants them to cost a lot less.

Still a goal!  Only now the goal is not to be as good as GMOs but better with resistance to stress.  (Honestly that was the goal back then, too, we just kept it closer and less public).  We still think pricing for GMO-traited corn is way too high, and now we have a way to keep our pricing fair and farmer-focused by selling BASS Hybrids directly.

From a practical perspective, Baumgartner sees non-GMO seeds as a business niche. From an idealistic perspective, he sees them as an inexpensive alternative for small farmers and third-world farmers.

In this time, our business has grown: we love it, and we believe in it.  We view our seeds as a more cost-effective alternative for all farmers willing to try out our seeds. 

“We are not going head-to-head with GMOs,” [Baumgartner] says.

We are now.  We are very confident in our hybrids after 19+ years of development and testing (with multiple crops per year!) that BASS Hybrids will yield at least as good as the fully GMO-traited traited hybrids provided by the big chemical companies.  We are also very upset by the high price of those GMO seeds. 

If you aren’t already planting BASS, please do your farm a favor: run some calculations.  Plug the yield numbers in, plug our seed costs in, and watch your return per acre start going up immediately.  With lower up-front seed costs, switching to BASS will also shift the cash flow.

“What I want to increase is kernels per plant,” Baumgartner says. “Whether that’s on two ears, three ears or just one big ear, I don’t care. My preference would be to find something that puts on multiple large ears. I guess I’m greedy.” He laughs his big laugh.

Check out our hybrids with multi-eared tendencies… (Hint: it’s most of the ones labeled “Durayield”).  This goal – and the subsequent breeding work to meet that goal- is why we can confidently say, “Yes, you can plant a lower population with that hybrid” while it seems like most of the industry is saying to increase population.

[Baumgartner] wants to raise the national average by increasing yields in less-productive soils. If that happens, the national average will rise faster than by raising best of the best on limited acres.

If you are still hesitant about switching to BASS, start us on those less productive acres.  Those acres are what we started breeding corn for, why we developed Durayield. Durable Yield.  Yield you can count on when everything doesn’t go just right.

Check out the original article here: Hobby Out of Control: Maverick Seed Breeder Wants to Feed World with Non-GMO Corn by Jim Patrico, originally published in the August 2012 issue of the Progressive Farmer, and currently available on www.dtnpf.com.