Advanta Seeds visit IRRI HQ to explore more potential collaborations

Last December 5-7, a delegation from Advanta Seeds from India and the Philippines visited IRRI Headquarters to explore potential areas of collaboration between the two organizations.

Advanta Seeds, a subsidiary of Indian multinational UPL Limited, is a global leader in traditional plant breeding for high-quality seeds in various field crops, including rice. As part of its global strategy, IRRI engages with private sector partners around the world to accelerate the scale and reach of the institute’s innovations and technologies to benefit farmers, particularly smallholders.

Advanta is already a trusted partner of IRRI, and a member of various initiatives such as Hybrid Rice Development Consortium (HRDC), Network for Accelerated Rice Varieties for Impact (NARVI), and Two Line Rice Hybrid Study Group. Now, they are interested to further work closely with IRRI to leverage our knowledge and experience in rice science to create market-differentiating breeding products.

Members of the visiting Advanta delegation included Mr. Satyadev Vaddadi, Director - R&D FC & FR - South Asia; Dr. Elangovan Mani, India Molecular Breeding Lead (VC & FC); Dr. Balaji Suresh Pippalla, Manager for Trait Introgression; and Mr. Seraj Ahmad, Business Lead - Philippines & NEA.

The delegation was welcomed by IRRI Tech Transfer Senior Manager - Business Development  Dr. Linga Reddy Gutha and Deputy Platform Leader for Rice Breeding Innovations Dr. Sankalp Bhosale. The delegation participated in various in-depth scientific discussions with Dr. Damien Platten, Dr. Nese Sreenivasulu, Dr. Kenneth McNally and Dr. Shalabh Dixit.

The potential collaborations discussed included: 1) how IRRI can play a role in integration of genomic selection in their rice breeding strategy; 2) grain quality profiling of their parental lines for predictive breeding; 3) closer collaboration in rice native traits and informatics; 4) licensing of additional rice hybrids from HRDC for the Philippines; 5) exploration of a collaboration model for exchange of germplasm from Direct Seeded Rice breeding program, and 6) Licensing of IRRI germplasm for Africa.

As a follow up of this meeting, IRRI Tech Transfer and Dr. Jauhar Ali will visit Advanta’s facility in Hyderabad, India this December to discuss various opportunities of two-line rice hybrids.