Organization: Ankur Seeds Pvt Ltd
MD: Mr MG Shembekar
Boiscience Revenue: Rs 350 crore

Beginning with a modest office of a little over 200 sqft in 1976 at Nagpur Ankur Seeds has expanded exponentially. Nearing its 40 years of establishment, Ankur Seeds today offers over 115 quality seed products over 16 crops. The company has 11 processing plants spread over Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka.

The company has initiated a project on complete mechanised farming of cotton beginning from sowing to harvesting. Ankur seeds has been working on to develop plant type which would be suitable for mechanized cultivation.

The company's Bollgard II technology has been a big success and it has reached to 95 percent of cotton growing farmers across the country owing to its trait of providing protection against all four major worms - American bollworm, spotted bollworm, Pink bollworm, and tobacco leaf eating caterpillars.

However, with the universal acceptance of bollgard technology, sucking pest has become major pest for cotton growers and they have to toil hard to keep at bay. Besides, lot of illegal Bollgard III (RR cotton) is being sold in the market, although government is yet to give the permission for sale of such seeds according to unconfirmed re
ports. Sale of such spurious and illegal seeds in the name of advance technology are putting a lot of pressure on organized seed sector business growth, claims company.

Ankur Seeds has been incorporating a lot of desired traits in paddy product using modern technology to impart resistance against major disease and insect of rice like Blast, Bacterial leaf blight and BPH.

Similarly, using technology to enhance nitrogen and phosphorous usage efficiency etc in rice. Ankur Seeds is in the process of developing drought tolerant, sucking and grey mildew resistant and lintless cotton in coming days.

In vegetables, the company's major focus is on chilli, brinjal and tomato crops. Drought and heat resistant, virus resistant and anthracnose resistant chilli, bacterial wilt resistant, phomopsis blight resistant brinjal and early blight resistant, virus resistant and bacterial wilt resistant tomato products are in the offing.

The company has been working in collaboration with international and national research organizations like Cornell University, Texas Tech University from USA, KeyGene from Netherland, AVRDC from Taiwan, Trait Genetics from Germany, IRRI from the Philippines, ICRISAT, IARI, ICGEB and Delhi University in India.