#TDB support # M/s Kan Biosys Pvt. Ltd., Pune for “Development and commercialization of straw utilization technology: In-situ Accelerated and Sustainable Rice Straw Decomposition (ASRSD)”

Technology Development Board has entered into an agreement on 27th March, 2018 with M/s Kan Biosys Pvt. Ltd., Pune for Project entitled “Development and commercialization of straw utilization technology: In-situ Accelerated and Sustainable Rice Straw Decomposition (ASRSD)”.

M/s Kan Biosys Pvt. Ltd., Pune is an Agri-biotech company engaged in the production of microbial inputs for agriculture. They have been manufacturing innovative certified Agri-inputs like Bio-fertilizers, Bio-pesticides and services for Soil Health Management for the past 10 years. The company has 16 state of art microbial products developed using in-house technology. All products are marketed in India and exported to over 5 countries routinely.

This project focuses on in-situ degradation approach of rice straw utilizing microbial cultures on farmer’s field in 15-20 days. The proposed product “Speed Kompost” is an organic manure based microbial consortia containing ligno-cellulose degrading fungi and bacteria and having shelf life of one year. Fungi are produced by solid state fermentation while bacterial cultures are grown under submerged fermentation conditions and the dormant forms of these microbes are mixed with organic manure as carrier. They have also developed the Microbe food which boosts the initial growth of microbes to ensures early colonization on rice straw.

One of the major benefits of this technology is that the microbial culture are directly added to the soil where they aid in cellulose, starch and silica conversion. This technology involves minimal use of machinery and water. This is an economically viable option to farmers for management of rice straw and at the same time maintaining soil health for higher yield and pollution abatement measures.