The Indian Seed Industry loses yet another gem – Father of Mahyco Cotton

Mr. Keshav Joshi  was an Agriculture Post Graduate and started his career with MAHYCO, Jalna in the year 1972 and served  for 30 years. He was the Chief Scientist and Programme Leader of Transgenic Crop Breeding. He was the first person from India who got training to transfer the gene at the Monsanto facilities in US. He had developed first GMS based hybrid for large-scale production and marketing; and first CMS based hybrid. He was the first in India to transfer Bt gene in Indian cotton germplasm. Mr.Joshi had visited many countries like US, Australia, Turkey, China & Indonesia for attending various conference and seminars on cotton.
He had developed and evaluated new promising hybrids of cotton and vegetables such as Brinjal, Bottle Gourd, Bitter Gourd, Ridge Gourd, Chilli, Cucumber, Tomato etc. He had identified superior hybrids for different market segments. He had successfully identified nine hybrids in cotton, which are performing very well in the states of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan. In case of vegetables, evolved two hybrids of Okra, three in Bottle Gourd, fourteen in Brinjal, five in Bitter Gourd, four in Chilli, one each in Ridge Gourd, Cabbage, Onion, Watermelon and Cucumber, two in Sponge Gourd. His contribution to Mahcyo & the Indian Seed Industry will live forever.

Source – RJBiotech