Syngenta AG is a provider of agricultural science and technology, in particular seeds and pesticides, with its management headquarters in Basel, Switzerland, and further locations in Chicago, Tel Aviv, and Shanghai. It is owned by ChemChina, a Chinese state-owned enterprise.Syngenta AG was founded in 2000 by the merger of the agrichemical businesses of Novartis and AstraZeneca, and acquired by China National Chemical Corporation (ChemChina) in 2015. In 2020, the Syngenta Group was formed, bringing together Syngenta AG, Adama, and the agricultural business of Sinochem under a single entity. Its consists of Syngenta Crop Protection, Syngenta Seeds, Adama, and Syngenta Group China.Syngenta's primary products include pesticides, selective herbicides, non-selective herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, as well as corn, soya, and biofuel. Syngenta brands include Actara (Thiamethoxam), Agrisure (corn with Viptera trait), Alto (Cyproconazole), Amistar (azoxystrobin), Avicta, Axial, Bicep II, Bravo, Callisto, Celest, Cruiser (TMX, Thiamethoxam), Dividend, Dual, Durivo, Elatus, Fusilade, Force, Golden Harvest, Gramoxone, Karate, Northrup-King (NK), Proclaim, Revus, Ridomil, Rogers, Score, Seguris, S&G, Tilt, Topik, Touchdown, Vertimec and Vibrance.The 2011 Dow Jones Sustainability Index named Syngenta one of the best performing chemical companies worldwide. However, the company has been controversial, mainly due to its main business -- selling toxic chemicals and the environmental impact of those chemicals -- but also due to its investment in lobbying. In 2012, the company was nominated for the "Public Eye Award", which denounces companies with questionable human rights practices.
The search for natural antioxidants to safeguard against several diseases is expanding rapidly. Interestingly, the levels of antioxidants have been discovered to be greater in the in vitro-raised calli than the plant extracts in vivo. The aim of this research was to standardize the protocols for culturing calli of five potential medicinal herbs and determine their antioxidant and polyphenolic compounds. The calli of carnation, goji berry, harmal, bitter cucumber, and datura were developed from young leaves using Murashige and Skoog media with varied forms and concentrations of cytokinin and auxin in combination after their optimization. Goji berry, carnation, and datura initiated callus in 13 days, faster than bitter cucumber (20 days). Datura had a 28.7
This study demonstrates that the US cotton landrace collection provides a rich resource of genetic resources for improved agronomic and fiber quality performance for future cotton improvement. The Gossypium hirsutum L. landrace collection (n 2500), maintained by the US cotton germplasm collection in College Station, TX, USA, has been underutilized in cotton cultivar development programs. Underutilization is due to: (1) the common photoperiod sensitive growth habit of landraces that requires short day length to stimulate reproductive growth and (2) a lack of relevant phenotypic data for traits of interest in cotton production. In this study, the entire G. hirsutum landrace collection was first field evaluated in the Southeastern United States for photoperiod insensitivity. A total of 186 naturally occurring day-neutral accessions were identified and self-pollinated over 2–3 years to maintain heterogeneity and assemble a total of 216 accessions (including some component lines). Second, the 216 day-neutral accessions, along with eight elite, upland breeding lines and cultivars, were evaluated over 2 years for per se agronomic and fiber quality performance in replicated field trials under rainfed and irrigated conditions. On average, day-neutral landraces produced lint yield and lint percent lower than elite checks while they did not differ from elite checks for seed protein, seed oil, and fiber quality properties. Several day-neutral landraces were identified with desirable lint yield and fiber quality under rainfed and/or irrigated conditions. In total, this large evaluation of day-neutral landrace per se agronomic and fiber quality performance provides a much-needed resource to facilitate their efficient selection as breeding parents for cotton improvement.
