The Monsanto Company was an American agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation founded in 1901 and headquartered in Creve Coeur, Missouri. Monsanto's best-known product is Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide, developed in the 1970s. Later, the company became a major producer of genetically engineered crops. In 2018, the company ranked 199th on the Fortune 500 of the largest United States corporations by revenue.
Roundup is a brand name of herbicide originally produced by Monsanto, which Bayer acquired in 2018. Prior to the late-2010s formulations, it used broad-spectrum glyphosate-based herbicides. As of 2009, sales of Roundup herbicides still represented about 10 percent of Monsanto's revenue despite competition from Chinese producers of other glyphosate-based herbicides. The overall Roundup line of products, which includes genetically modified seeds, represented about half of Monsanto's yearly revenue. The product is marketed to consumers by Scotts Miracle-Gro Company. In the late-2010s other non-glyphosate containing herbicides were also sold under the Roundup brand.
Glyphosate is a broad-spectrum systemic herbicide and crop desiccant. It is an organophosphorus compound, specifically a phosphonate, which acts by inhibiting the plant enzyme 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase (EPSP). It is used to kill weeds, especially annual broadleaf weeds and grasses that compete with crops. Its herbicidal effectiveness was discovered by Monsanto chemist John E. Franz in 1970. Monsanto brought it to market for agricultural use in 1974 under the trade name Roundup. Monsanto's last commercially relevant United States patent expired in 2000.
A lawn is an area of soil-covered land planted with grasses and other durable plants such as clover which are maintained at a short height with a lawn mower and used for aesthetic and recreational purposes—it is also commonly referred to as part of a garden. Lawns are usually composed only of grass species, subject to weed and pest control, maintained in a green color, and are regularly mowed to ensure an acceptable length. Lawns are used around houses, apartments, commercial buildings and offices. Many city parks also have large lawn areas. In recreational contexts, the specialised names turf, pitch, field or green may be used, depending on the sport and the continent.
Agrostis is a large and very nearly cosmopolitan genus of plants in the grass family, found in nearly all the countries in the world. It has been bred as a GMO creeping bent grass.
Syngenta AG is a provider of agricultural science and technology, in particular seeds and pesticides with its management headquarters in Basel, Switzerland. It is owned by ChemChina, a Chinese state-owned enterprise.
Agrostis stolonifera is a perennial grass species in the family Poaceae. It is widely used as turf for golf courses.
Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc. is a U.S.-based producer of seeds for agriculture. They are a major producer of genetically modified crops with insect and herbicide resistance.
Ortho- is a Greek prefix meaning “straight”, “upright”, “right” or “correct”.
Dicamba is a selective systemic herbicide first registered in 1967. Brand names for formulations of this herbicide include Dianat, Banvel, Diablo, Oracle and Vanquish. This chemical compound is a chlorinated derivative of o-anisic acid.
Sun Gro Horticulture is a producer of peat moss and bark-based growing mixes for professional use in North America. It is also a distributor of fertilizer, water-soluble fertilizer, perlite, and vermiculite.
Charles Martin Berger (1936–2008) was a business executive who created several well-known advertising campaigns for Heinz ketchup. He worked for Heinz for 32 years before moving on to become CEO of Scotts Miracle-Gro Company. Berger died in 2008 at the age of 72 after a protracted illness.
The Bayer AG is a German multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company and is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies and biomedical companies in the world. Headquartered in Leverkusen, Bayer's areas of business include: pharmaceuticals, consumer healthcare products, agricultural chemicals, seeds and biotechnology products. The company is a component of the EURO STOXX 50 stock market index.
Scotts LawnService was a subdivision of the Scotts Miracle-Gro Company, an American multinational corporation headquartered in Marysville, Ohio. It was founded with the acquisition of Emerald Green Lawn Care in 1998 and was merged into TruGreen in 2016.
Gardens Alive!, Inc. was a privately owned multi-title catalog company founded in 1984. It sells garden and lawn supplies, specializing in organic products under its namesake catalog. The company has expanded by aggressively purchasing other catalog companies, including expansion into gift and games after acquiring the assets of defunct catalog company BlueSky Brands in 2008. As of 2010, the company has annual sales of approximately $170 million, 60 percent of which was from garden-related business.
Monsanto was involved in several high-profile lawsuits, as both plaintiff and defendant. It had been defendant in a number of lawsuits over health and environmental issues related to its products. Monsanto also made frequent use of the courts to defend its patents, particularly in the area of agricultural biotechnology. Bayer acquired Monsanto in 2018, and the company has since been involved in litigation related to ex-Monsanto products such as glyphosate, PCBs and dicamba. In 2020 it paid over $10 billion to settle lawsuits involving the glyphosate based herbicide Roundup.
Hawthorne Gardening Company, formed in October 2014, is The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company's subsidiary for cannabis growers and one of the first major investments by a major United States corporation in the cannabis industry.
Glyphosate-based herbicides are usually made of a glyphosate salt that is combined with other ingredients that are needed to stabilize the herbicide formula and allow penetration into plants. The glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup was first developed by Monsanto in the 1970s. It is used most heavily on corn, soy, and cotton crops that have been genetically modified to be resistant to the herbicide. Some products include two active ingredients, such as Enlist Duo which includes 2,4-D as well as glyphosate. As of 2010, more than 750 glyphosate products were on the market. The names of inert ingredients used in glyphosate formulations are usually not listed on the product labels.
Johnson v. Monsanto Co. was the first lawsuit to proceed to trial over Monsanto's Roundup herbicide product causing cancer. The lawsuit alleged that the exposure of glyphosate, an active ingredient in the Roundup product, caused Dewayne "Lee" Johnson's non-Hodgkin lymphoma. In a landmark verdict, Monsanto's purchaser Bayer Corporation was ordered by a San Francisco jury to pay $289m in punitive damages and compensatory damages. Monsanto, and after June 2018 Bayer, appealed the verdict several times. The award was cut to $78 million, then reduced to $21 million after appeal.
TruGreen, originally known as ChemLawn and later as TruGreen ChemLawn, is the largest lawn treatment company in the United States. The company was founded in 1969 and provides lawn care and tree and shrub care treatments on a subscription basis. The treatments and services include weed killing, moss suppression, pesticides, aeration, overseeding, and fertilizing. The company does not offer lawn mowing service nor sod as a sellable service. The TruGreen brand is also used for lawn services in Canada through a Mississauga, Ontario–based company named Greenlawn Ltd. that does business as TruGreen. The TruGreen brand, under Servicemaster is also used in the United Kingdom.
US$ 2.66 billion (2018) [1] 
