DuPont and Pioneer are elevating their emphasis on developing seed treatments with the opening of an Integrated Seed Science Center last week in Johnston.

One of the center’s primary focuses will be studying the interaction of new crop and seed treatment technologies in the early stages of development to find products that complement each other, said Alex Cochran, seed treatment enterprise research and development director for DuPont Crop Protection.

"The traditional approach has been to apply seed treatments on corn or soybeans sort of a add-on technology," he said. "We’re working to understand how seed treatments interact with biotech traits far earlier than before to understand where there may ...