The Hindu Business Line : Rasi Seeds sets up Rs 10-cr research facility

Sharing details with newspersons, its Managing Director, Dr M. Ramasami, said the company distributed 20,000 kg of the RHR 111 last year. “It is a 125-day crop with yield potential of 7-8 tonnes/hectare,” he said.

The company has established a biotech and plant breeding research facility at Attur on an outlay of Rs 10 crore.

Research work

Stating that the facility is the first of its kind to be set up in a rural area, Dr Ramasami said the centre would focus on developing virus resistant transgenic crops and insect resistant varieties.

“Virus is an area where not much research has been done so far, so we have decided to focus on this area. We will ultimately go in for transgenic,” he said and explained that only marker assisted selection would help increase yield levels and improve breeding cycle. The company is hopeful of reducing the breeding cycle by using Bt tools.

According to him, virus caused the maximum yield loss in vegetable crops.

Rasi has commenced its research work on the yellow vein mosaic virus six months back, in crops such as bhindi (lady’s finger) and tomato.

Developing resistant varieties

The company is working with the Indian Institute of Science (Bangalore) on a gene for developing resistance against the leaf curl virus in cotton, prevalent widely in North India.

Besides IISc, Rasi has also associated itself with the Farm Varsity in Coimbatore and Madurai Kamaraj University for developing tapioca varieties resistant to the dreaded Cassava Mosaic Virus.

Focus on select crops

“We want to focus on select crops and bring whatever technology is available across the globe for seeds here,” he said.

According to him, the company has, with the release of 25 high yielding bollgard cotton hybrids, a 25 per cent share of the market — equivalent to 5 million packets out of the total 20 million packets of seeds produced and distributed across the country.

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