Representatives of the largest grass seed producer, a Danish company DLF Seeds, have visited Zashchitnoye, a plant breeding and seed growing enterprise of EkoNiva Group. During the meeting, the parties discussed the current cooperation issues and outlined the prospective directions for their future joint work.

Two years ago, EkoNiva and DLF Seeds signed a contract on reproducing seeds of annual ryegrass, a fodder crop. Back then, Lolan, a variety of Czech origin, was first sown in the fields of Zashchitnoye. Later, it showed output capacity amounting to 1.5 tonnes per hectare.

‘Last year, we reaped approximately 150 tonnes of clean and high-quality seed material from the plot in Zashchitnoye’, says Yevgeniy Kucheryavenko, Executive Director of EkoNiva-Semena. ‘The second year of the project has seen a threefold increase in the planted area under ryegrass, we also received Jivet, another ryegrass variety, for reproduction purposes.’

Despite the unfavourable weather conditions which reigned this year, Jivet demonstrated a decent yielding capacity of 1.2 tonnes per hectare. Similar results are obtained in Moravian mild climate, where they breed both the above-mentioned varieties.

The guests from DLF Seeds had a chance to explore all production stages during their tour of EkoNiva’s enterprise. They could also watch how the seeds are sorted out at the threshing floor at Zashchitnoye. The work is supposed to be finished in 10-12 days, and in late October, the final product will be shipped to customers.

‘EkoNiva has a well-deserved reputation of a strong and reliable seed-growing partner. Apart from the contract for seed reproduction, we are cooperating with the company under a sublicence contract – its subdivision EkoNiva-Semena is authorised to sell Jivet ryegrass seeds to its clients. We are content with our partnership and plan to enhance it with other grasses after preliminary trials and analyses’, notes Yevgeniy Kotov, CEO of DLF Seeds Subdivision for Russia and CIS countries.