In FY 2010-11, Rasi Seeds recorded a growth of just 3.7% but the company is expected to make substantial gains during the current fiscal

Rasi Seeds reported biotech sales revenue of 371.88 crore in FY 2010-11 as compared to 358.78 crore in FY 2009-10. The reasons behind the sluggish growth has been attributed to decrease in seed production due to heavy rainfall, which lashed parts of Tamil Nadu in December 2009.

Rasi Seeds made rapid advances in seed production and supply ventures and has reached a commendable position by investing in R&D initiatives. The company has sold about 42.5 lakh packets of Bt cotton hybrids in nine states during the 2010 kharif season.

Rasi Seeds received approval for the commercial release of RCH 2 Bt in the year 2004 and has subsequently developed an impressive line-up of 25 products under Bt and BG II, including RCH 134 Bt, RCH 20 Bt, RCH 118 Bt, RCH 138 Bt, RCH 2 BG II, RCH 515 BG II and RCH 530 BG II among others.

The company also released RCHB 708 Bt under ELS segment, which is being rated as a high yielding hybrid. Rasi has about 10,000 farmers for direct seed production. Rasi Seeds is committed to serve the Indian farmers by following new and powerful technologies in crop improvement.

It has set up state-of-the-art biotechnology laboratories and crop breeding facilities at Attur, near Salem, Tamil Nadu, with an investment of 10 crore in 2008.
The R&D facility of Rasi has got recognition from the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India.
The R&D center has laboratories for biotech research, crops research and germplsam conservation. It also has an insect bioassay laboratory, library, documentation and other facilities spread across an area of 40,000 sq ft. Its biotech labs are equipped with modern equipments such as PCR machines, refrigerated centrifuges, DNA gel documentation system and various DNA electrophoresis systems, including nucleotide sequencing facility and freeze-dryers.

In addition, the R & D center is well equipped with infrastructural facilities that include, research farm of 140 acres, a 55,000 sq ft transgenic greenhouse, seed quality control laboratory and state-of-the-art seed processing facilities.

The crop biotechnology activities are carried out in a well equipped plant molecular biology laboratory.

The thrust of the center is now on marker assisted selection, using DNA markers for several important traits in crops such as rice, wheat, cotton and vegetables. This will involve integration of crop breeding and biotechnology, including bioinformatics.

Rasi Seeds plans to intensify its transgenic research in different field crops and vegetables for agronomically important traits besides quality traits. Rasi Seeds had signed an MoU with the (Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi, in 2008 for seed production of public rice hybrid Pusa RH 10 and marketing of the same in the north zone of the country.