Platform to accelerate investment in next generation ag-tech innovation
Vylor, the advanced seed and genetics company that will spin-off from Corteva on October 1, 2026, today announced the launch of Vylor Edge, a new investment platform dedicated to accelerating the development of advanced technologies in global agriculture. Vylor Edge will collaborate with start-ups, entrepreneurs, universities and the wider innovation ecosystem through equity investments and strategic partnerships.
“Vylor Edge will partner with the global scientific community to deliver breakthrough innovations that advance global agriculture and mitigate key production challenges,” said Sam Eathington, chief technology officer of the future Vylor. “Pairing Vylor’s world class expertise with other technology leaders from around the world will help drive innovation and equip farmers with the tools they need to be successful.”
Vylor Edge will initially focus on identifying opportunities across strategic verticals aligned with Vylor’s priorities, including gene editing and advanced breeding; protein engineering; as well as artificial intelligence and digital technology platforms. It will also explore opportunities in other areas and sectors to harness technologies applicable to Vylor’s business and mission to help farmers feed and fuel the world.
“We are excited to collaborate with entrepreneurs who can benefit from the deep expertise of our dedicated team, as well as Vylor’s leading R&D capabilities, global footprint, and go-to-market infrastructure,” said Mat Muller, head of Vylor Edge. “We look forward to supporting the development and commercialization of promising technologies and deliver new innovations to growers.”
The Vylor Edge portfolio will be launched with a strong foundation of investments and collaborations that were previously part of Corteva Catalyst and are now transitioning to Vylor as part of the company’s spin-off from Corteva. Through Vylor Edge, Vylor will continue to support and expand these partnerships while identifying new opportunities to accelerate innovation across global agriculture.
Industry-First Yield and Yield Stability Trait, Advanced Insect Control to Deliver Step-Change in Production, Farmer Profitability
Company to Lock in Market Leadership, Deliver $2 Billion in Incremental Revenue by 2035
INDIANAPOLIS, September 1, 2026 – Ahead of its planned separation on October 1, 2026, Corteva, Inc. (NYSE: CTVA) today unveiled the corn pipeline for its advanced seed and advanced genetics spin-off, Vylor. The multi-year innovation roadmap will strengthen Vylor’s corn market leadership across core geographies, expand farmer choice and flexibility, and deliver long-term, royalty-advantaged growth[1].
“Corn is already one of the most planted crops in the world and its importance will only continue to grow. Our pipeline changes the game through 2035 with the industry’s first-ever trait designed to improve yield and yield stability. In field trials across the Americas, corn with this trait took outstanding performance to a new level by delivering an incremental three bushels per acre on average, with gains of up to 10 bushels per acre1,” said Sam Eathington, chief technology officer of the future Vylor.
Eathington continued, “Vylor’s impressive corn portfolio will be the direct result of the billions of dollars we have invested over the past decade to help farmers keep pace with growing, changing markets. We are building long-term, royalty-advantaged technology platforms that give Vylor more freedom to innovate, grows our licensing business and positions the company for sustained leadership.”
Vylor’s corn portfolio is expected to deliver more than $2 billion in incremental revenue by 2035, including licensing[2]. All told, Vylor is on track to launch seven new corn technology platforms through 2035, which together will be sold across 90% of Vylor’s corn business.
In 2028, Vylor expects the corn innovation roadmap to launch in Latin America with Abranvo™ technology, a platform that provides effective fall army worm control with two new modes of action coupled with yield and yield stability and multiple modes of herbicide tolerance. This will be followed by the launch of Vylor’s next generation insect control with two additional, proprietary new modes of action, extending fall army worm control.
In 2029 the roadmap will move to North America, where Vylor plans to deliver its next generation above-ground insect control technology coupled with its proprietary yield and yield stability trait.
Vylor product launches will continue through the end of this decade, across multiple regions, with the transformative, gene edited, multi-disease resistant (MDR) corn technology – another industry first. Vylor’s MDR combats four separate corn diseases: Northern Corn Leaf Blight, Grey Leafspot, Southern Rust and Anthracnose Stalk Rot. Vylor will also launch reduced stature corn, built on its next generation technology platforms and deployed in segments where it can deliver the greatest value to farmers.
In 2031, also in North America, Vylor expects to redefine below-ground insect control for corn by launching a new product that offers two new, non-Bt[3] modes of action for corn rootworm – including one that is plant-based, an industry first.
Taken together, Vylor will be able to offer farmers the industry’s most comprehensive corn portfolio of proprietary, innovative and effective products via multiple routes to market, including licensing.
Overall, Vylor’s corn strategy is anchored by three elements:
1. A focus on farmers and ability to invest in technology that consistently delivers value for them;
2. The ability to leverage elite germplasm to expand brand strength and enable out-licensing; and
3. Proprietary biotech and gene-editing technology platforms that support the company’s move from licensee to licensor.
Vylor’s market leadership in corn is built on more than 100 years of advanced genetics and breeding expertise and the industry’s leading germplasm. The roadmap unveiled today puts Vylor in a position of continued leadership globally in corn.
Alayne Johnson, Director of the National Pork Board, joins us this week to explore the priorities shaping pork demand, producer insights and research across the U.S. pork industry. Alayne shares her journey through agriculture, what led her to serve another term on the National Pork Board and how the organization approaches its role in research, promotion and consumer education on behalf of pork producers.
The conversation also examines the shifts defining the industry today, from changing consumer preferences and global demand opportunities to sustainability, nutrition and the research priorities expected to shape the sector’s next chapter.
Highlights include:
Alayne’s journey through agriculture, what led her to the National Pork Board and why she chose to serve another term.
How her appointment to the board came together, what motivated her to serve and what she has learned through the experience.
What surprised her most about how decisions are made at the national level and how those decisions connect back to producers.
The biggest changes shaping agriculture today and how those shifts are influencing the National Pork Board’s priorities.
Where Alayne sees the greatest opportunity to grow pork demand globally and the trends she believes matter most.
An overview of the National Pork Board’s current research agenda, including areas such as animal health, human nutrition, environmental sustainability and consumer behavior.
What recent consumer research is revealing about how shoppers make decisions and how those insights flow back to producers.
Where pork fits into today’s evolving protein conversation as consumers place more value on nutrition, transparency and the story behind their food.
Where Alayne sees the next wave of research delivering the greatest return across production, consumer trends and sustainability.
What has her most excited about this next term and the future of the pork industry.
More than 100 robots covered 55,427 acres in 2026 as Solinftec expands farmer self-service and autonomy across the Solix platform
Solinftec, a global leader in artificial intelligence and robotics for agriculture, will showcase the continued expansion of its Solix autonomous farming platform at the 2026 Farm Progress Show, Sept. 1–3 in Boone, Iowa.
Following its largest U.S. commercial season to date, Solinftec will launch an Amazon store for Solix replacement parts, share new field results, demonstrate how its autonomous Refill Station closes the operating cycle without human intervention and preview the expanded Solix platform. Together, the advancements support what Solinftec calls “Freedom Per Acre,” giving farmers greater flexibility to decide when and how fieldwork is completed.
Through July 2026, more than 100 Solix robots operated in 13 states and Puerto Rico, covering 55,427 acres – 15 times more acreage than three years ago — and monitoring more than 95 million plants individually. The robots reduced chemical use by an average of 85%, with results remaining between 83% and 89% as the fleet and acreage expanded.
Autonomous refilling closes the operating cycle
The 2026 growing season marked the first full commercial season for Solinftec’s autonomous Refill Station, which allows Solix to dock, refill and return to work without a farmer traveling to the field.
Through July 2026, Solix robots completed more than 1,700 autonomous refills, transferring more than 45,000 gallons of product through the Refill Stations. One station alone refilled its accompanying robot more than 120 times, eliminating approximately 120 trips a farmer otherwise would have needed to make to the field.
“A robot that still requires a person to repeatedly drive to the field and refill it is not fully autonomous,” Guiné said. “Closing that cycle gives farmers something extremely valuable: flexibility in their day. The robot can keep working while they focus on another field, another part of the operation or life away from the farm.”
Solinftec expects to deploy approximately 200 robots and 80 additional Refill Stations for the 2027 growing season.
Expanded Solix platform gives farmers more choice
Solinftec is developing an expanded four-model Solix family designed to give farmers the ability to choose the power source, capacity and field performance that best fit their operations. Every model operates with Solinftec’s ALICE AI platform.
The family includes the solar-electric Solix X1; battery-electric Solix XT; gas/diesel-powered Solix XR; and hybrid-electric Solix XC. The models range from 50 to 1,200 gallons in capacity and are designed for targeted or targeted-and-broadcast application, depending on the model.
At the September Farm Progress Show, Solinftec plans to preview the gas/diesel-powered Solix XR, which is expected to be commercially available for the 2027 growing season.
Amazon parts store expands farmer self-service
During the Farm Progress Show, Solinftec will also launch an Amazon store offering certain Solix replacement parts directly to farmers. The company says it is the first agricultural robotics company to offer its replacement parts through Amazon. The move is part of Solinftec’s effort to make Solix increasingly self-service, allowing farmers to purchase robots directly from Solinftec, receive remote support and complete many routine repairs themselves.
The current Solix robot is priced at $55,000, and Solinftec estimates growers can recover that cost in approximately 2.5 years based solely on projected input savings. The estimate does not include potential savings from labor, fuel, equipment use or additional field passes.
Farm Progress Show 2026
At the Farm Progress Show, Solinftec will have an expanded booth with a live demonstration area where attendees can see Solix identify and treat simulated weeds and autonomously use the Refill Station. Children and families can also try Solix Defender, a tablet-based game that simulates the robot’s targeted weed-control process and is expected to be released publicly through Apple’s App Store and Google Play.
Solinftec will exhibit at booth 15N. To schedule an interview or demonstration with a Solinftec representative or participating Iowa farmer, contact Angela Tuell, [email protected] or 317-567-9126.
The American Chemical Society (ACS) will honor researchers and companies as Heroes of Chemistry for creating and enhancing products that have led to significant advancements in sustainability and improvements in health care. The ceremony to honor these achievements will take place on Tuesday, Aug. 25, in Chicago, IL, during ACS Fall 2026.
“The 2026 Heroes of Chemistry truly embrace the ACS commitment of improving all lives through the transforming power of chemistry,” says ACS President Rigoberto Hernandez. “These companies are advancing innovations that strengthen human health, support global food systems and enable more sustainable technologies. Their work demonstrates how chemistry can solve some of the most pressing challenges facing society today.”
Scientific teams in industry are being honored for the following achievements:
Novartis: Scemblix® (asciminib) is a novel therapy for chronic myeloid leukemia that works by restoring a key protein to its inactive state.
Corteva: Pyraxalt™ active (triflumezopyrim) provides rapid, long lasting control of rice planthoppers through a novel mode of action that stops pests from feeding and controls resistant populations. Its selectivity and single application effectiveness helps protect yields, supports sustainable farming and strengthens food security for rice growing communities across Asia.
Qnity Electronics: Recognized for a breakthrough in non fluorine photoresists for semiconductor manufacturing. This innovation supports the industry’s shift away from PFAS, advancing sustainability while meeting the precision needs of modern chip production. First commercialized with the launch of UV™ 26GNF photoresist, Qnity has expanded this technology across a range of products used in semiconductor lithography.
Gilead Sciences: Veklury® (remdesivir) is an antiviral that demonstrates broad spectrum activity against multiple pathogens, including SARS-CoV-2, Ebola, SARS, Marburg and MERS in vitro. Rapidly developed and scaled, it became the first FDA approved COVID-19 treatment, with clinical trials showing that it reduced recovery time and disease progression risk during the global pandemic.
The 2026 winners will be inducted into the Heroes of Chemistry scientific hall of fame, which ACS has sponsored annually since 1996.
Special thanks to the ACS Board Committee on Corporation Associates, which evaluated the applications and selected the winners.
Transaction adds CRISPR-based precision microbiome technology and BiomElix® One, a poultry feed additive approved in Brazil
BiomEdit, a pioneering animal health biotechnology company, announced it has acquired Folium Science’s technology platform and pipeline assets, including BiomElix® One, a poultry feed additive approved in Brazil. The transaction adds both an approved product asset and a complementary CRISPR-based microbiome technology to BiomEdit’s existing capabilities and broadens the company’s pipeline across animal health and nutrition.
BiomEdit is pioneering a new class of genetically engineered bacterial biologics called Programmable Veterinary Biologics™, designed to perform targeted biological functions in animals. This acquisition adds Folium’s Guided Biotics® CRISPR-Cas technology, a complementary approach designed to selectively target specific bacterial populations within the microbiome while preserving the broader microbial community.
“Folium assembled an exceptional scientific team and built a differentiated platform that complements BiomEdit’s existing technology,” said Aaron Schacht, CEO of BiomEdit. “One approach engineers beneficial bacteria to perform targeted biological functions; the other selectively targets specific bacterial populations within the microbiome. Together, these scientific approaches give us a broader set of tools to address important animal health and production challenges.”
BiomEdit will now have two advanced poultry product programs based on distinct precision microbiome technologies. The company’s lead candidate, BE-101, is being developed for the prevention of mortality associated with necrotic enteritis in broiler chickens and is in the final stages of the conditional licensure process with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Center for Veterinary Biologics (USDA CVB). Folium’s BiomElix® One has received approval from Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAPA) for use as an animal feed additive.
“I’m proud of what our team built and confident that, in BiomEdit, our science has found the right home: one with the vision, expertise and development capability to realize its full potential for animal health,” said Ed Fuchs, co-founder of Folium Science.
“Ed Fuchs, Martin Woodward and the entire Folium team have built a strong foundation over the past decade,” said Schacht. “By combining these complementary technologies in one platform, we can both engineer beneficial microbes to perform specific biological functions and selectively reshape microbial communities. This broader toolkit expands our ability to design precise, differentiated solutions that improve animal health and productivity.”
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Annual Awards Program Recognizes Innovation in Ag & Food Technologies Around the Globe
Intelinair, an automated crop intelligence company that uses AI and machine learning to help growers and agronomic advisors turn field data into decisions, today announced it has been selected as winner of the “AI-based AgTech Innovation of the Year” award in the 7th annual AgTech Breakthrough Awards program conducted by AgTech Breakthrough, a leading market intelligence organization that recognizes the top companies, technologies, and products in the global agricultural and food technology markets today.
Every season, a single farm can generate terabytes of data from imagery, soil sensors, yield monitors, weather feeds, and planting records, yet most growers and advisors struggle to turn it into timely decisions. Intelinair built its AGMRI platform to close that gap. AGMRI integrates imagery, soil sampling, real-time weather, planting, and harvest records and field boundaries into a single, continuously updated view of enrolled corn and soybean fields, storing data across many zones per field to capture the within-field variability field-level averages miss.
“Growers and their advisors have never had more data, and yet the hardest part of their job is still turning that data into the right decision at the right time,” said Tim Hassinger, President and CEO of Intelinair. “AGMRI was built to do that synthesis, and the AGMRI AI Agent now lets an advisor simply ask a question and get an answer in seconds that used to take hours of analysis. Being recognized by AgTech Breakthrough is a tremendous honor for the team that made it possible.”
At the core of AGMRI, proprietary machine-learning models analyze multispectral imagery to detect crop stress, disease, nutrient deficiency, drainage issues, and stand problems, often before they are visible to the human eye, then enrich those findings with soil, application, and seed-placement data. The platform’s AGMRI AI Agent, live for the 2026 crop season, opens those capabilities to plain-language questions: it queries the live data directly, accounts for differences in soil and field conditions to keep comparisons fair, and returns formatted reports, dashboards and prescription maps. Analysis that once took two to four hours per grower now takes under a minute, supporting decisions on hybrid placement, seeding rates, fungicide timing, harvest sequencing and field-level profitability.
The AgTech sector is rapidly redefining how food is produced, managed and distributed, transforming one of the world’s most essential industries. From AI-driven crop analytics and precision farming platforms to sustainable agriculture solutions and autonomous equipment, AgTech is delivering greater efficiency, transparency and environmental responsibility.
The mission of the annual AgTech Breakthrough Awards program is to recognize the innovators transforming the global agricultural and food production landscape through technology. The program conducts a comprehensive analysis of the companies, technologies, and solutions redefining how crops are grown, livestock is managed, and food is produced and distributed. From precision agriculture platforms and farm management software to AI-driven yield forecasting, IoT-based soil and water sensing, and synthetic biology innovations, these breakthrough innovations are enabling agricultural companies to operate more sustainably, feed a growing global population, and shape the future of how the world grows and produces food.
“The strongest AI entries this year were the ones that put advanced analysis directly in the hands of the people making daily operating decisions, rather than leaving it with data scientists,” said Bryan Vaughn, Managing Director, AgTech Breakthrough. “Intelinair stood out for pairing deep agronomic modeling with an AI agent that turns a grower’s question into a field-level recommendation on the spot. It is a deserving winner of our 2026 AI-based AgTech Innovation of the Year award.”
As its models strengthen with every season of accumulated data, Intelinair is continuing to invest in AGMRI, the AGMRI AI Agent and the grower and ag-retail partnerships behind it.
