Advanta, Arcadia BioSciences Collaborate On Salt-Tolerant Sorghum

Posted by Matt Hopkins|30 April 2009

Sorghum seed research and marketing company Avanta, headquartered in Mumbai, India, has reached a research and commercial development agreement with Davis, California, US-based Arcadia BioSciences for the development of salt-tolerant sorghum. Under terms of the agreement, Advanta receives exclusive global rights to Arcadia’s salt-tolerance technology. This builds on the agreement struck in January by the two companies for the development of Nitrogen Use Efficient (NUE) sorghum.

Arcadia’s salt-tolerance technology allows plants to produce normal yields and grain quality under salty water and soil conditions, expanding the range of lands available for crop production and reducing requirements for fresh water. The expected result will be high-yielding crops with a lower impact on the environment and an ability to grow on land currently not suitable for productive farming.

“Grown on more than 100 million acres worldwide, sorghum is a very important cereal grain crop. This salt-tolerance technology, together with the NUE technology, allows Advanta to expand the global reach and impact of sorghum,” says V.R. Kaundinya, Advanta CEO and Managing Director. “Many sorghum growing areas of the world, which are also growing in population, are challenged by soil salinity and scarce supplies of fresh water for irrigation. Increasing yields for food and feed in these environments is critical, which is why we are excited to be bringing these technologies into our large and diverse germplasm base and breeding program.”

Sweet sorghum also has tremendous potential as a biofuels source, the two companies say. By combining technologies such as NUE and salt tolerance, Advanta and Arcadia anticipate development of a sweet sorghum biofuels crop that will be a highly efficient alternative fuel source while reducing the environmental impact and requiring less fresh water.