Research & Development
About Our R&D
Company's R&D has been recognized from Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR). The objective is to strengthen company's research programs by innovating and developing multiple stress tolerant products of mandatory crops to cater future needs of the farmers. To achieve this, we had collaborated with national and international institutions viz. IRRI, IIRR, NRRI, CIMMYT, CICR, IIMR. IIOR, SAU's, Crop Directorates and other seed supplying agencies to utilize their germplasm lines with multiple defensive traits, which will fulfil our goals in developing and supplying superior products to farmers.
Research activity starts with germplasm collection from research institutions and put them in evaluation to understand their performance. All research programs have been carried out in the company leased R&D farms at Hyderabad, Jaipur and Lucknow. Team of experienced breeders have been engaged in the research activities like Parental line development and improvement (includes crossing), desired plant selection (by test cross evaluation to understand their combining ability and agronomic suitability), further selections to use them in development of hybrids, and evaluation of hybrids' performance (in step-wise and scientific manner). The process also includes development of male and female parental lines (also R. B and A) to produce hybrids. Hybrids/Varieties undergoes multilocation trials and adaptive trials in different levels and compared with suitable check hybrids/varieties. Promising hybrids are also been evaluated through State agri. Universities and ICAR All India Crop Improvement projects.
Breeding is a strategically oriented scientific profession which interlinks with multi-disciplines. Product requirements of a farmer varies with his resource availability, growing ecology, commercial produce demand, consumer preferences etc. Hence, a thorough knowledge of product concepts and breeding processes i.e. for Line Development and Product Development/Evaluation are essential pre-requisite for a breeder before starting of a commercial breeding program.
Besides these, many other challenges faced by the breeders such as limited germplasm, narrow genetic base, limited levels of heterosis, lack of good parental lines, preferred grain and biotic and abiotic stresses etc. Understanding the product concept requires, market survey information on potential hybrid/variety areas, core target geography, cultivation ecology, key defensive traits like, tolerance to biotic stresses, tolerance to abiotic stresses. Key agronomic traits are also essential in product development. These are the requirements in the back drop of good yield.
Product Advancement Process begins with the new products developed at R&D. It needs a robust system of evaluation to identify the best of the best products for commercial release and cultivation. The process includes different stages of testing with suitable experimental designs (with desired no. of replications) & plot size in optimum no. of locations to represent target geographies. Product testing/evaluations will be done with bench mark commercial checks and OPV to ensure minimum no. of data points and yield advantages to take strategic decisions. It also needs to ensure the economic producibility of the new product.
To accomplish above diverse germplasm is a key input for the success of any breeding program. Understanding these germplasms through precise phenotyping and accurate fingerprinting/genotyping, prelude to categorize them into active germplasm with key strengths and key considerations.
Along with conventional way of breeding we are also deploying new technologies like Molecular tools viz., MAS, Genotyping, GWAS, Speed Breeding etc., to develop novel tech. products.
