Welcome to the 153rd edition of Upstream Ag Professional
Index
Tracking Retail Biostimulant Engagement: Highlights and Analysis of Stratus Ag Research Survey Data
Hybrid Wheat and Initiatives from Corteva, Bayer, Syngenta and BASF
Syngenta and Groundwork BioAg enter partnership to bring innovation in biologicals and soil carbon solutions to farmers
Sabanto and Leaps by Bayer Announce Oversubscribed Series B Financing to Scale Autonomous Technology for Row Crop Farming
As regulatory pressure increases, Ichor Ag aims to ‘supercharge’ fungicides with a new class of chemistry
An AI “World Model” and Bonsai Robotics
Syngenta sues BASF for infringing US herbicide patent
Yara International Q2 2026 Results
Quick Hits (7 this week)
AI’s Biggest Winners Have the Lowest Margins
Other Interesting Ag Articles (7 this week)
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This week's audio is a rapid fire edition, including a look at Stratus Ag Research survey data on how ag retailers are engaging with biostimulants, hybrid wheat news from Bayer, Syngenta's biologicals partnership with Groundwork BioAg, and Sabanto's Series B led by Leaps by Bayer to scale autonomy retrofits. Also covered: Syngenta's patent suit against BASF over Ridivex, and the latest delay to Syngenta's $5 billion Hong Kong IPO.
You can listen to it here.
1. Tracking Retail Biostimulant Engagement: Highlights and Analysis of Stratus Ag Research Survey Data - Upstream Ag Professional
Last week, I shared Stratus Ag Research data surrounding grower surveys. This week, we dig into the survey data from North American ag retailers.
Key Takeaways
The share of US retailers selling one or more biostimulants more than doubled in two years: 27% (2023), 59% (2024), 68% (2025).
Retailer commitment to keep selling edged up, with "committed" rising from 32% (2023) to 39% (2025) as the "neutral" middle shrank from 44% to 36%. The gains came largely from converting indifferent retailers, not from reducing the "not committed" group (steady at 25%).
Retail distribution is dominated by legacy manufacturers, vertically integrated players, and independents partnering with the big five. Nine of the top 10 US retail-sold brands fit these categories.
ATP Nutrition is the lone independent exception, ranking #1 among retail-sold brands in Canada. Founded in 2011, it reached the top in under 15 years via strong positioning, technology, and founder-led (Jarrett Chambers) technical plus commercial expertise.
Farmer usage of N-fixing biologicals continues to climb, yet retail selling of N-fixing products fell from 35.1% in 2024 to 24.7% in 2025.
N-fixing biologicals also carry the weakest forward commitment of any category: just 19.4% of retailers are "committed" sellers versus 39.2% across all brands.
Farmer satisfaction with N-fixing biologicals lags which implies higher churn, and poor perception of N products, which likely soured retailers on the whole category.
Retail understanding of performance is improving: the share of retailers who "don't know" whether a biostimulant worked has fallen from the 15-25% seen in 2022, though the author argues it should be under 5%. Rising confidence in strong performance is a prerequisite for the category maturing into agronomic credibility.
For the full article, check out the link in the heading.
2. Hybrid Wheat and Initiatives from Corteva, Bayer, Syngenta and BASF - Upstream Ag Professional
Hybrid wheat has been an active storyline in the seed sector over the past few of years.
Syngenta has moved to commercial product in North America and Europe, BASF and Corteva each shared meaningful updates on their programs and timelines, and this week Bayer expanded its germplasm partnership with RAGT and put a €1 billion peak sales figure on the segment.
Each company shares details across various timelines, and often in fragmented fashion, which makes it hard to see how it all compares. The full write up pulls the recent developments into one place: overview of hybrid wheat, who is doing what, where they are launching, which wheat classes and geographies they are targeting, and what it all signals for whether hybrid wheat finally becomes commercial reality in North America. Check out the link in the heading.
3. Syngenta and Groundwork BioAg enter partnership to bring innovation in biologicals and soil carbon solutions to farmers - Syngenta
This week, Syngenta announced a strategic partnership with Groundwork BioAg to commercialize Groundwork's mycorrhizal technology under Syngenta's own label. The focus initially targets corn, soy, cereals, and sunflower in Latin America and Europe. North America was not mentioned. Groundwork will still do the manufacturing, supply, and the full carbon program.
Two things make this more than another line item on Syngenta's partnership roster.
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