FAQs

We aim to be crop agnostic and will try to accommodate any crop. The time lines for crops, protocols and other crop specific factors will need to be discussed prior to deployment. We undertake 6 types of trials : 

  • Replicated trials
  • Head to Head (Strip) trials
  • Demos
  • Bio-inoculants/ agri-chemical trials
  • Bio-safety trials
  • Customised trials and general trials

Our Team comprises agronomic domain experts and field staff with deep functional and operational experience. We also endeavour to arm our team with continuous required training on managing the Phenotyping facilities, agronomical practices to be followed and accurate data recording. Checkpointing and logging the activities through manual and autonomous methods helps us in making sure required operational discipline is maintained and in accordance with our SOP and client MLT protocols. Our SOP , which are available to our clients, have been developed to best in industry standards and accommodate ICAR suggestions and other protocols gathered from our experience. In addition, we also make sure to address common anomalies that are usually causative to underperformance or failure of trials like animal and pest menace or unforeseen weather circumstances through continuous reporting to plan mid season interventions. Our platform further ensures that required measures are taken through mobile and mail notifications to field staff,  data sanity checks online to ensure recording integrity and ensure actual field data capture through field staff location tracking tools built in mobile while capturing data. We also take in selecting our trials sites and locations based on Agroclimatic profile variance, Soil Type variance, Rainfall pattern, abiotic stress- rained conditions, Salinity, cold stress, Integrity & legalities of farmer’s land,  undecided/ shared/Own/ leased/disputes if any

Client specific data confidentiality ensured through digital security measures like authenticated and authorised access, role based data access etc. While the physical trial site entry itself is restricted to only authorised personnel, coded entry on field varieties, traits or organisation negates any identification. We can also facilitate motion sensors or other intrusion detection methods and high quality continuous live video feed based on customer demand. Safety & security measures of the physical trials from biotic and abiotic stress are managed through border rows and trap crops and we are open to deploy other suggestions from our clients.

  • Organised company representative visits
  • Simple, safe and secured material shipment procedure.
  • Platform training and handholding with interpretation of data analysis provided
  • Ensure that provided seed quantity will suffice the trials and no wastage will happen
  • Ensure safety of the seeds provided
  • Ensure test material quality through quality benchmarking reports
  • Review and deployment of improvements suggested by the customer with a simple & transparent feedback mechanism
  • Enforce prior virtual trial deployment by clients.
  • Realtime Review
    • Provision for customised trial management and data reports
    • Dynamic realtime and user friendly web interface to track trial performance and access reports
      • Provision for bespoke reports in specified format
    • Advanced analytics
  • Standard measurements/observations beyond protocol specified for grain, fruit, fibre quality, soil, microbiome, weather and satellite, hot spot screening for biotic and abiotic stresses. These are customised after consultation with the third party service provider and the client.
  • The Trial is assured by deployment of progressive farmers ensuring basic agriculture facilities, cooperative and the trained , skilled ,field staff.  Also, the QA system in place ensures the periodic or seasonal internal audits for the Plan-Do- Check-Act process for continuous improvement, including client feedback back in periodic intervals , field visits and specific criteria and parameters to be included in the data formats.

India is divided into 15 Agro-climatic zones (further sub-divided into more homogeneous 72 sub-zones) by the Planning Commission of India. An agroclimatic zone is a region with a specific climate and soil that’s suitable for a certain range of crops. They are defined based on factors such as soil type, land use, rainfall, irrigation, and crop suitability. The 15 regions so delineated are:  Western Himalayan Region, Eastern Himalayan Region, Lower Gangetic Plains Region, Middle Gangetic Plains Region, Upper Gangetic Plains Region, Trans- Gangetic Region, Eastern Plateau & Hills Region, Central Plateau & Hills Region, Western Plateau and Hills Region, Southern Plateau & Hills Region, East Coast Plains & Hills Region, West Coast Plains & Ghats Region, Gujarat Plains & Hills Region, Western Dry Region & The Islands Region.  Beyond these, there are other divisions identified by various collaborations like NARP of ICAR has divided India into 127 agro-climatic zones and NBSS&LUP-ICAR came up with 20 Agro-ecological zones

North and North West region : Mustard, spring Maize, Rabi vegetables , Rice (hybrid& Research variety), Eastern region: Mustard and Rabi maize, Western region: All crops including Cotton, N.Western: Cotton, Maize , Bajra, Mustard hybrids, Central: Maize, cotton, Mustard & South: all crop hybrids both in Rabi & Kharif. 

Crop trial composition is subjective to the crop. For example:

  • Maize – reduced row to row and seed to seed distance to accommodate a population of 28-32 k/ac plants depending on the phenotype and genetic composition.
  • Cotton crop is raised with population density ranging between 1.0 to 3.0 lakh plants (45-60 cm between rows and 10 cm between plants) per hectare as against the normal plant population of 0.18 to 0.20 lakh plants (90-120 cm between rows and 60-90 cm between plants) per hectare.
  • In house trials are at least 30-35% more expensive due to overheads (CTC) , does not mean that a company should dislodge the PD  team , but the costs of managing a field team are reduced with no legal or statutory obligations .
  • SAU trials are very expensive ( a lakh per entry per location) , in some states , own trials suffice the product registration requirement ( TN for example)

It is Govt & ICAR prerogative to carry out crop coordinated trials mainly for hybrid notification and entry into National list, which enables the company to participate in subsidy business. However some SAUs have made state trials mandatory in addition to the subsidy business. Still, India has not qualified for accepting independent trials (like Truthful labelled seeds for hybrids) for product registration , let alone product  notification . Hopefully in the coming years , the scenario may change.

Yes. GMO trials are more involved but we can follow RCGM/GEAC protocols and perform trials if required.