Garst Seed Company has announced the grand prizewinners in its Blue + Yellow = Green (BYG) sweepstakes.

Eleven growers won free one-year leases for new Chevy 1500 Flex Fuel pickup trucks and Garst awarded 110 first-place prizes of $100 ethanol certificates.

David Witherspoon, head of Garst says, “This initiative is part of our continuous efforts to provide seed and traits that help our customers be more productive and meet the increasing demand for corn that’s being driven by renewable fuels.”

Garst’s parent company Syngenta is conducting research and developing additional products that will benefit the renewable fuels market. One example is a proprietary corn amylase output trait that expresses higher levels of the enzyme amylase, which can increase the efficiency of ethanol production. Syngenta intends to launch the corn amylase trait by 2008, pending the achievement of a number of technical, commercial and regulatory milestones.