Monument Circle Acquisition Corp (MON)

[DewDiligence]

Re: Refuge in a Bag

At the end of February, Pioneer formally submitted papers to EPA for the industry’s first “in the bag” seed refuge system, Optimum AcreMax, to address corn rootworm protection… the Herculex rootworm trait is unique in how corn rootworm larvae react. Larvae nibble on roots with the Herculex CRW protection, but they don’t like the taste, so they leave the roots alone. Because the larvae don’t actually eat the treated roots, they’re unlikely to gain resistance, the main reason for refuge areas, [DuPont’s] Belzer said.

Still, Herculex CRW is the only anti-rootworm trait in AcreMax, which means that bugs need only to overcome one MoA to become resistant to the product.

In contrast, the rationale for the refuge reduction to 5%* for MON’s SmartStax is that there are multiple MoA’s against both above-ground and below-ground insects. Mathematically, having two or more MoA’s against a given insect is very much more effective than having only one. If, for the sake of discussion, we assume that an insect has a 1% probability of developing resistance to one MoA, then the probability of the insect developing resistance to two independent MoA’s is .01x.01=0.01%. This is one hundredth the probability of resistance to a single MoA, which makes the likelihood of a sustainable colony of resistant bugs very much smaller.

*Outside the cotton belt.