INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — In the five months since the world’s agribusiness giant, Swiss-based Syngenta AG, brushed off a $47 billion takeover bid by St. Louis’s Monsanto Co., boardroom members across the globe have been thinking: What’s next?

Now, from across the Pacific, the Chinese have moved in to shake up the seed and pesticides market even more by scooping up The Dow Chemical Co.’s Indianapolis-based subsidiary Dow AgroSciences LLC’s oxyfluorfen business, with more than $7 billion in annual sales.

And in Basel, Switzerland, acquisition talks are again swirling as another China-based company has targeted Syngenta’s seed and agrichemical business, a move that would strengthen China’s much-needed seed development and research.

Last week, Dow announced its sale to the Beijing-based Nutrichem Co., Ltd., a leading supplier of agrochemicals in China. Both companies have said they hope to close the deal by the end of the year. The financial terms have not been announced.

Dow AgroSciences has 9,000 employees worldwide, with 62 research and develop-ment (R&D) centers and 56 manufacturing plants scattered throughout 130 coun-tries. According to a company statement, Nutrichem is one of China’s top 100 agrochemical enterprises focusing on R&D in crop protection products.

The combination of the two R&D companies will form one of largest agrochemical research companies in the world.  Just last month, Nutrichem went public on the Shenzhen stock exchange and is flush with cash. It currently holds 52 Chinese patents and has applied for more than 75 more national innovation patents, the statement said.

The company is building an ultramodern research complex in the heart of Beijing’s Life and Science Park and plans to open early next year, taking some of Dow AgroSciences’ top scientists to China.

Last year, Nutrichem acquired 20 percent interest in the Ankeny, Iowa-based company Albaugh, for $220 million in cash. Albaugh is the largest global privately held producer of off-patent herbicides and other plant-growth regulators for the international market.

As Dow talks were taking place over the past few weeks, Syngenta Chair Michel Demaré has been holding talks of his own on potentially selling the company to the state-owned China National Chemical Co. or ChemChina, according to Wall Street insiders. But as it did six months ago when it rejected a takeover bid from Monsanto, Syngenta again has said, “no deal,” reported Bloomberg.

This time, however, talks are continuing, Bloomberg added, and reported a deal could be reached in the coming weeks. In the meantime, both companies have declined to comment.

Jonas Oxgaard, a New York-based analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., told Bloomberg, “ChemChina is really interested in the seed research” business at Syngenta. “It’s arguably the main strategic rationale for the (ChemChina) deal” he added. That was before it became public that Monsanto may make another run at Syngenta.

After Syngenta tossed aside Monsanto’s offer in August, angry shareholders caused an uproar that forced its chief executive, Mike Mark, to resign on Oct. 21. Within hours, the company appointed its chief financial officer, John Ramsay, as interim CEO while the company searches for a replacement.

With the shakeup in the agriculture and chemical industry, another front-office shuffle has been settled with the permanent appointment of Ed Breen as the new head of DuPont. Breen had been appointed interim CEO late last month following the surprise retirement of Ellen Kullman.

At the time of his appointment, Breen, who was a DuPont board member, told reporters he planned to reduce costs and was looking at new deals to transform the 213-year-old company, the maker of Pioneer corn and Kevlar fibers. Late last week, The Wall Street Journal reported DuPont is talking to Syngenta about merging with its agricultural unit, while DuPont separately said it was looking at Dow’s seed and farm chemical division.

All of the companies have declined to comment.