CTC has created synthetic “seeds” produced in a biofactory that should replace traditional seedlings.
The plants that grow in one of CTC’s experimental areas in Piracicaba carry the mark of a revolution. The planting was done with synthetic “seeds” that open and give origin to one of the most complete raw materials of the Brazilian agriculture, being, source of sugar, ethanol, and energy, among other products.
These alternative promises to facilitate the producer’s work, save space, facilitate logistics, and with this, generate savings of billions of Brazilian reais per crop.
According to CTC’s CEO, Gustavo Leite: “Planting with seeds developed from embryos will revolutionize sugarcane cultivation, providing significant economic, operational and environmental gains. This will translate into more productive crops, with greater competitiveness for sugar and ethanol. And the technology will also be the basis for seed design for other plants that propagate vegetatively, such as citrus, eucalyptus and onions, among others – in Brazil and other parts of the world.”
Reduction of failures
Extending this process could generate a gain of more than R$1,000 per hectare, and reducing the cycle for full appropriation of the potential of new varieties by at least five years would tend to deliver another R$4,000 per hectare.
Identical plant
The bio factory installed in Piracicaba will ensure the production of materials capable of originating a plant identical to the one from which the material is extracted to start the process – which requires several steps for multiplication and preparation to ensure quality and enable efficient germination and health.
Thus, for the biological material to be planted and achieve its best performance in the field, even under variable and often adverse climate and soil conditions, it must be combined with nutritional and protective components, which ensures its survival and development and allows storage and mechanized planting, in view of large-scale cultivation.
The news is in full on the Valor Globo site.
