Landec Corporation said today that its Intellicoat Corporation subsidiary is constructing a new seed coating facility in West Lebanon, Indiana. Construction of the facility is expected to be completed by the end of August.

The new facility will utilize a new continuous coating process for application of the company's Intelimer® polymer-based coatings which are designed to regulate the water uptake of seeds and thus control the timing of seed germination. This new process will increase Intellicoat's seed coating capabilities by tenfold as compared to its current batch coaters.

This year marked the initial commercialization of the Intellicoat technology with inbred seed corn through a number of America's leading seed companies, including ICI, Cargill and Pioneer. The company is currently conducting field trials with the relay cropping of wheat and soybeans and a hybrid corn seed coating.

"Our decision to expand the company's manufacturing capacity reflects our confidence in the market opportunity for our technology,'' noted Gary T. Steele, chairman and chief executive officer of Landec. "Based on customer response to our initial products and the early results from current field trials, we are anticipating growing demand for Intellicoat products next year,'' he added.

The trials for relay cropping of wheat and soybeans are underway on more than 900 acres at more than 50 commercial farms and university sites in seven Midwest states.

"While we won't have the final data from these trials until this fall, the results to date have been encouraging,'' said Tom Crowley, president and chief executive officer of Intellicoat. "The wheat that has been harvested on these demonstration sites is producing yields that are nearly equivalent to commercial monocrop wheat yields and the stand count and the health of the soybean plants look very encouraging for fall harvest. As a result, we believe the economics of producing two crops off the same field in one year will provide an extremely attractive cropping
system for many farmers in the Midwest corn belt who can now only plant a monocrop of wheat or soybean,'' he continued.

Landec's unique relay cropping method entails the planting of winter wheat in late fall, with the coated soybeans planted into the wheat the following May when the emerging wheat is eight to twelve inches tall. The coating prevents the soybeans from germinating for 20-25 days while the wheat continues to grow and mature. Because of the delayed germination, the soybeans are only six to ten inches high and therefore not tall enough to be damaged during the wheat harvest. Following the wheat harvest, the established soybeans have enough moisture and sunlight
to produce a healthy crop, which enables the farmer to harvest two crops in the same growing season off the same field.

Crowley said trials for the Intellicoat hybrid seed corn, which was planted 3-4 weeks earlier than normal, are showing excellent emergence and standcount results. "Being able to expand the critical planting window for corn in the spring would enable large farmers to utilize staff and equipment more efficiently and provide them flexibility during the critical planting period. We have had a great deal of interest from farmers and anticipate expanding our program to limited commercial quantities for next year's spring planting period,'' Crowley said.

Landec Corporation designs, develops, manufactures and sells temperature-activated and other specialty polymers for a variety of food, agricultural, industrial and medical applications. The company's temperature-activated polymer products are based on its proprietary Intelimer polymers, which differ from other polymers in that they can be customized to abruptly change their physical characteristics when heated or cooled through a pre-set temperature switch.

Company news release
N2886