Producers marketing Roundup Ready corn are urged to use care when selling their crop.

Roundup Ready corn contains in-plant tolerance to Roundup herbicide enabling Roundup to be sprayed with proven crop safety and no yield reduction, said Lee Quarles, spokesman for Monsanto.

The problem facing farmers who planted Roundup Ready corn isn’t that it will have a negative effect on people; it’s that the European Union has not approved use of it. Therefore, it must be sold through channels that don’t lead to Europe, said Charlie Hurburgh of the Iowa Grain Quality Initiative at Iowa State.

“We sell a lot of corn products to the European Union,” said Rod Williamson, director of research and regulatory affairs for the Iowa Corn Growers Association. “And since it isn’t approved by the European Union, it is important for farmers and elevators to segregate it.”

The impact of a mixup occurring could be significant and reduce exports, Williamson said.

“A significant portion of the corn [exported to Europe] is from Iowa,” Hurburgh said.

Monsanto asked the farmers that planted Roundup Ready corn to voluntarily sign a pledge to sell the Roundup Ready corn only to elevators that are accepting it, Hurburgh said.

“This is a way to work with the growers to find markets,” Quarles said. “We can help identify appropriate places such as feed lots, feed mills and elevators accepting Roundup Ready corn.”

There are few ways to tell if the corn is Roundup Ready or conventional. To help elevators identify corn that is Roundup Ready but not identified by farmers, test kits have been developed by Strategic Diagnostics Inc. to detect the Roundup Ready traits, said Arthur Koch, chief operating officer of the company.

The test produced by SDI will detect the NK603 line Roundup Ready corn; however, the GA21 line is the predominant seed line used this year. The SDI information leads to an “implication that you could test all types,” Hurburgh said.

“We detect only NK603 with our tests,” Koch said.

The important issue is that the Roundup Ready corn not reach the European Union. That is why the Iowa Grain Quality Initiative has a campaign, “Do the Right Thing” going on this fall, Hurburgh said.

The campaign is a reminder to farmers with Roundup Ready corn to market it to the correct elevators. The are “some major elevators that aren’t accepting” the corn, Hurburgh said.

The National Corn Growers Association and the Iowa Corn Growers Association also have a campaign, “Know Before You Grow” which encourages growers to know and understand the product being planted before they grow it, Williamson said.

“This casts concern about the whole corn market,” Williamson said. “It will affect all growers whether or not they used Roundup Ready Corn.”