The Canadian crop protection arm of Germany’s BASF plans to step up its game in the crop inoculant business with a $10 million expansion at its Saskatoon plant.
The facility, set up in 1988, handles production and research and development for BASF’s seed- and soil-applied rhizobium/bacillus inoculants, exported and sold worldwide under the Nodulator brand name, formerly known as HiStick.
The company, in a release Thursday, said its investment will go to increase the site’s production capacity by volume and “ensure greater production efficiency and operational safety.”
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“The expansion is our response to the increasing demand for our biological inoculant solutions worldwide,” Julia Harnal, marketing director for BASF Crop Protection Canada, said in the company’s release.
“With these investments, our latest innovation, Nodulator Duo, will soon make its way from our facilities in Saskatoon to growers in Canada, who seek better plant nutrition for their crops.”
BASF describes Nodulator Duo as a solid-core granular inoculant for peas and lentils, containing rhizobia bacteria — at a rate of at least 80 billion rhizobia per kilogram — to fix nitrogen onto crops, and a Bacillus subtilis that creates a biofilm to protect plant roots.
The company’s other Nodulator products include Nodulator, Nodulator N/T, Nodulator PRO and Nodulator SCG for soybeans and Nodulator XL for peas and lentils.
BASF noted Thursday it has recently invested over $828 million in its eight other North American ag product facilities and related sites. — AGCanada.com Network
