For your eyes only: Media day with Bayer ES
CLAYTON, NC — Hidden deep within the heart of North Carolina, maybe a half hour away from the Raleigh airport, a team of renegade scientists is brewing up deadly new chemical concoctions.
Though the work there is top secret, I was able to infiltrate the facility, located on what looks to the outside world as an ordinary 281-acre farm, but is in reality one of the most advanced turfgrass research facilities in the country. Though at this point, you should note that by “infiltrate,” I mean I was invited there by Bayer Environmental Science and given a complete tour, along with a nice lunch. Still, there were dangers all abound, if again you note that "danger" refers to a three-hole golf course that Bayer maintains and uses to tests its latest products which we got to play on. Finally, I somehow managed to escape (okay, they drove me back to the airport), bringing with me a horde of information on the latest research, as well as a couple packets of airline peanuts. I hope I can now share this with you (the information, not the peanuts) in hopes that you too will be aware of the horrors that will be unleashed upon us if we sit back and do nothing, as long as you understand that by “us,” I’m referring to weeds, fungi and other lawn pests. Secrets revealed Moving away from the cloak and dagger stuff, my infiltration at Bayer’s facility was part of a media day the company hosted. Along with learning about the research facility, much of the presentation focused on the process and challenges of bringing a new product to the market in the Green Industry. Research shows that the average cost of bringing a new pesticide to the market is now somewhere around $240 million. Mainly, the cost is being driven up by 1. the need for research facilities, 2. the need for scientific expertise and 3. the need for a lead discovery process (finding new compounds to work with.)
For Bayer, two of those three components are housed together at its Clayton Research Facility, the aforementioned 281-acre farm dedicated to the study of turfgrass weeds, diseases and insects. Along with more than 60 acres of various breeds of turf, and the three-hole golf course, the facility consists of 10 interconnected greenhouses, conference center, and laboratories to study urban pests such as cockroaches and termites. While Bayer labs around the world screen more than 1 million chemical compounds each year, searching for the next pesticide, herbicide or insecticide breakthrough, the Clayton facility gives the researchers the space they need to test their potential new products in a real-world setting. The Bayer team spends more than 4,500 man-hours and performed more than 500 field trials per year at the Clayton facility. “Innovation used to be driven primarily by the agrochemical market’s needs,” said Nick Hamon, director of development and technical services for Bayer. “This is changing. We’re seeing greater growth in the turf and ornamental side and are dedicating more research directly for this market.” In 2005, Bayer invested $650 million into research and development. In the next five years, the company will launch four new fungicides, four new herbicides and two new insecticides, though what those would be really is top secret and they wouldn’t tell me any more about them. Bayer also is constantly looking at new uses and formulations of its existing pesticides to better meet the needs of today’s lawn care professional, a process Bayer refers to as proximity innovation. “It’s not always about finding the next active ingredient, but about how you use what you have,” Hamon said. That is important because the time it takes any new product to reach the market is around 10 years. Along the way, manufacturers know that some new possible products don’t make it, either because of performance, or because they don’t make it through the rigorous testing done by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “The cost to get a product to the market includes the cost of all those products that you develop that never make it,” Hamon said. “At any time, the regulatory process could kill your product. “The market is constantly evolving,” added David Spak, fungicide product development manager for Bayer. “Every year, there’s a new disease or a new resistance issue, or the EPA decides we’re going to lose one of our products. It’s a tough market out there.” And just when a product is out on the market and becoming successful, patents run out and generic manufacturers move in. The way Bayer differentiates itself from this market is through its customer service. Bayer guarantees its products, and is constantly working with its distributors and users to ensure its products are as successful as they are during the field tests at the Clayton facility. “We give you what the generics can’t,” Hamon said. We do the research, we do the testing, and we do the product support. That’s what we mean when we say our products are ‘Backed by Bayer.’” University collaboration Bayer also announced that at the Clayton facility, the company has dedicated a Plant Health Lab. The laboratory was established as part of a plant health initiative Bayer has launched in cooperation with North Carolina State University (NCSU).
As part of this collaboration, Danehsa Carley, a post-doctorate turfgrass researcher from NCSU is working fulltime at the new laboratory at the Clayton facility. The laboratory includes equipment for measuring photosynthesis and root biomass, as well as methods for visually evaluating plant health. “Our goal is to establish a center of excellence for plant health evaluation,” Hamon said. “We plan to identify parameters which best characterize improvement in plant quality. In addition, we will develop methods to quantify the effects on turf and ornamentals in a laboratory and field environment.” “We view this collaborative effort as a significant event in the turfgrass program at N. C. State University,” said Rick Brandenburg, professor of entomology at NCSU. “The opportunity to exchange ideas, share facilities, train students and collaborate on novel technologies at facilities within a few miles of each other is one that any program would be excited to be a part of.”
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