How the Cazado® Launch Embodies Value Innovation

When the first growers sprayed Cazado® across their wheat fields in 2024, the results spoke for themselves.

“This is the cleanest wheat field we have on our farm. Not a single wild oat.”

That text, sent to the ADAMA Canada team from a grower during trial season, captured what Cazado® truly meant: real, visible, measurable impact. For the first time, Canadian growers had a herbicide that could effectively help manage wild oat resistance, keeping their best fields clean without forcing a trade-off in yield or profitability.

Cazado® delivered something growers had been waiting years for.

A First-of-Its-Kind Breakthrough

Cazado® is Canada’s first and only dual-mode herbicide for wild oat control in wheat, combining Group 1 and Group 2 actives to proactively manage resistance from two angles at once.

For growers, this means:

• The best choice for grass control in wheat on the market today!
• Effective management of both Group 1 and Group 2 resistant wild oats
• Cleaner fields and stronger yields
• More flexibility in cereal rotations
• Fewer headaches and higher profitability

The impact was immediate. Across early field trials and commercial launches, growers saw dramatic improvements in weed control.

But what made Cazado® possible—and what made its launch different—wasn’t just chemistry. It was collaboration.

The Power of Value Innovation

Innovation in agriculture doesn’t happen overnight. It emerges from countless trials, grower insights, technical breakthroughs, and a relentless focus on solving real-world challenges.

At ADAMA, this approach is called Value Innovation, a process where Listening, Learning, and Delivering converge to create solutions that truly matter.

Cazado® is a prime example of this model in action, a breakthrough made possible through collaboration across borders, disciplines, and generations of growers. It also represents a global milestone, with launches in other countries expected in the coming years.

Listening: Innovation Starts in the Field

Every successful innovation begins with a problem worth solving.

Year after year, wild oats ranked among the top weeds in Canadian weed surveys, particularly resistant to Group 1 and, increasingly, Group 2 herbicides. 

For many growers, this meant limited options in wheat, and no effective way to manage resistant wild oats without sacrificing yield or profitability.

ADAMA’s Canadian team recognized that this wasn’t just a weed issue. It was a livelihood issue.

So, they listened. They walked fields, spoke with growers, and heard firsthand the frustration of battling a weed that seemed one step ahead.

As Jodi Starodub, Marketing Lead in Canada, reflected:

“The true collaboration of all teams—to really understand what [specific] problem we were trying to solve—and then really coming together to [address it] was really important.

In Canada, wild oat resistance is a real problem for farmers. It comes out as the top one or two weeds every year in the [national] weed survey. And there’s a real issue because in cereals, specifically in wheat, there [haven’t been] many [effective control] options. 

This idea of hearing that problem, and then everyone—from global to local—working together to figure out what is the best way to solve that problem [was key to our approach]. It wasn’t something that we just tried to push because we thought it was cool, but nobody else really cared about. It came from the ground up, and that’s something that really speaks to why it was such a success.”

That grower-led pain point became the foundation of the Cazado® launch.

Learning: From Concept to Collaboration

With the problem clear, ADAMA’s scientists and agronomists turned to our fast, grower-led R&D process that accelerates discovery and development. Unlike traditional top-down innovation, this process is pulled forward by grower needs and local insights.

The idea behind Cazado® was deceptively simple: pair pinoxaden (Group 1) with thiencarbazone (Group 2) into a single formulation. This combination would allow one active to control weeds resistant to the other, addressing both Group 1 and Group 2 resistance in wild oats.

The challenge was anything but simple. Mixing actives from different groups often leads to antagonism, making one or both less effective.

Through years of trialing, tank-mixing, screening and re-formulating, the Canadian and global ADAMA teams wrestled with these complexities. 

As Ehud Yogev, Product Biology of Herbicides in ADAMA’s Product & Innovation sector, described it:

“It was not a problem-free process. That’s why the company is paying us, to solve problems. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be needed here.”

And Rob Bahry, Development Manager in Canada, explained the push-and-pull of collaboration:

“We shoot for the moon, and global tells us what actives are accessible and what can be formulated. That back and forth is how we got to the final solution.”

By 2021, the breakthrough came: a formulation stable enough, effective enough, and practical enough to move forward.

What made this possible wasn’t just lab science. It was listening to growers, learning from each trial, and applying those lessons repeatedly until we got it right.

Delivering: Getting Field Ready Together

Delivering innovation means more than registering a product. It means ensuring it actually works for growers—in their fields, under their conditions, and with confidence.

That’s why ADAMA Canada adopted a new philosophy in the years leading up to the launch: bring growers into the journey early.

Instead of waiting until registration, the team invited growers into field trials, knowledge sessions, and small-plot tours years in advance.

As Starodub recalled:

“Our goal was to get it into growers’ hands early. Let them see it, touch it, and ask the hard questions. Then we could adapt based on their feedback, not wait until launch to figure it out.”

Those hard questions covered everything from tank mixes to sprayer clean-out. ADAMA Canada didn’t shy away. They listened, tested, and adjusted.

This led to knowledge trials that demonstrated agronomic best practices, followed by experience trials that gave nearly 50 growers the chance to apply Cazado® under real-world farming conditions in 2024.

The impact was immediate. Growers weren’t just recipients of innovation, they were co-creators.

As Starodub described:

“When we invited growers to a webinar, hundreds signed up right away. It told us we had something truly different, because people wanted to learn and be part of it.”

The People Behind the Innovation

Behind every data point and field trial were people—growers, agronomists, formulators, and sales reps—working together.

Yogev noted the uniqueness of ADAMA Canada’s approach:

“The Canadian team know their farmers, they know the market, and they built this product out of that deep connection. That’s why it worked.”

Internally, the project also became a cultural shift.

As Ambrely Ralph, Product Manager of Herbicides in Canada, explained:

“None of us are as smart as the sum of all of us. By working together with farmers, we investigated more, tested more, and made the product better.”

It wasn’t just about launching a herbicide. It was about reshaping how ADAMA collaborates—small, agile teams working hand-in-hand with growers, supported by global expertise.

More Than a Launch: A Shift in Culture

Perhaps the most powerful part of the Cazado® story isn’t the herbicide itself, it’s the cultural shift it represents at ADAMA.

For years, ag innovation often followed a “top-down” model: big companies developed products in isolation, then handed them to farmers with instructions.

Cazado® flipped that script.

By involving growers from the outset, ADAMA Canada shifted to a “Listen, Learn, Deliver” model of innovation.

As Starodub said:

“The big companies often push programs. We focus on agronomics. That’s the difference growers feel.”

This approach didn’t just solve a weed resistance problem. It redefined ADAMA’s relationship with growers, from supplier to partner.

The Future of Value Innovation

The Cazado® launch is just one chapter in ADAMA’s broader journey of Value Innovation. It demonstrates what’s possible when we break down silos, combine global expertise with local insights, and embrace collaboration at every stage.

As Ralph reflected:

“Farmers are the real value innovators. We’re here to amplify that.”

The fight against wild oat resistance is ongoing, but with Cazado®, Canadian wheat growers now have a powerful new tool.

More importantly, they have proof that when ADAMA promises to Listen, Learn, Deliver, it’s more than words. It’s a blueprint for innovation itself.