In the year 1966, N A Joshi invented an extraordinary method of producing rose plants by growing them in poly bags. Devoting himself completely to this hobby of his, he started a rose garden by his name, his method winning him numerous accolades throughout the world. N. A. Joshi Rose Garden inspired its creator’s young student Maharudra Sherikar to continue its legacy in the form of Rushikesh Rosarian, started in 1980. Soon Maharudra’s son followed in his footsteps: 56 years later, Hrishikesh Sherikar is continuing the tradition of innovative plant cultivation through his own tissue culture company, Vericlone Tissue Technology. Recently a couple of new Indian roses have been named as ‘polybag Joshi’ and ‘N. A. Joshi’ in honour of his polybag method’s invention.
Learning from the Legend
Hrishikesh recalls about his natural inclination towards plants and their growth. “In my childhood days, I got an opportunity to be with Mr Joshi closely. He even taught me how to convert rose to graft. He rooted a true love for plants inside me. As a kid, whenever I used to visit any farm, he always used to teach me something new about plants. And that ultimately triggered a passion within me for plants which I took up as a career, proudly,” he says.
As Managing Director at Vericlone, he did his Masters in Crop biotechnology and Entrepreneurship from the University of Nottingham in 2012. He soon returned and worked at Rushikesh Rosarian in the areas of Growing, R&D and Laboratory and started Vericlone in 2014.
With dreams in his eyes, Hrishikesh prioritises the application of scientific principles of growing plants at Vericlone, as he wishes to “achieve the vision of being one of the world’s best quality plant growers.”
The founder, before coming back to India, gained the necessary training and experience at Primarosa in Kenya for a year (2012-2013). “I interned there as a Production Manager, which gave me the experience to work on an international platform. It helped me understand the work culture in international businesses. I was handling multi-hectare polyhouse and learnt project management skills,” he shares. All of it came in handy when he chose the path of entrepreneurship, but it wasn’t a smooth ride from the start. He worked towards solutions for every challenge that came his way.
Transformation to Tissue Culture
Initially, Vericlone was about growing plants via vegetative propagation. However, it takes lots of time and space for the ornamental plants to grow through this method, as opposed to the tissue culture technology which enables rapid growth of more plants in lesser time.
Instead of soil, using agar (derived from red algae) for plant growing creates a more hygienic medium for growing plants. Moreover, agar is semi-solid, making it easy to add nutrients and vitamins in the exact amounts needed. Agar has been found useful for orchid culture and other specialized plant reproduction in sterile conditions.
Hrishikesh talks about how he faced challenges with the availability of technology and resources in India, “I always wanted to apply my tech knowledge in our plant tissue culture business. We had to find a balance between the available resources here in India. Initially, our young plants had a higher mortality rate due to the weather conditions. So we had to design some humidity chambers ourselves. Now we use the humidity chambers designed by us with a capacity to grow 100000 plants together.” Moreover, the plants require water of a certain pH. Its purity is another issue he faces, as they work on soil-less media like agar and need to make sure the plants get the nutrition they need.
He explains, “We have to design our combination for the fertigation of plants. PUM organisation from the Netherlands helps us to overcome these challenges. Their constant mentorship helps us improve.” For his innovation and work, Sherikar has received the Young Nurserymen Award from the Indian Society of Floriculture Professionals and Certification from Floriculture Today.
Continuing a Legacy while creating his own
Vericlone deals in a diverse and colourful variety of plants. Ornamental as well as fruit plants, flowers, shrubs, and even trees can be procured from here. The company imports young plants from countries like Thailand, China, the Netherlands, and the Philippines and grows them to sell in pots to different parts of the countries.
“Our nursery has been operating for the past 40 years and has over 350 varieties of plants and trees with some of them from renowned breeders from across the world. We have built a laboratory to clone plant tissue at Vericlone Technology. It allows us to grow a million plants in an area of 3500 sq ft of laboratory, thereby saving space and resources,” says Hrishikesh.
Currently, they have started promoting the combination of growing plants together with aquatic animals such as different species of fish, a system that is known as Aquaponics. Elaborating the idea, he says, “We have adapted this technology to blown glass bowls where plants, fish and bacteria live successfully together. This Aquaponics bowl is an ecosystem that can be placed on a table at home or the office and makes an ideal gifting solution.”
The company aims at launching a new range of variegated plants in June this year. Plants such as Monstera deliciosa, Pink Princess Philodendron, Homalomena, Syngonium will be available in variegated patterns: this will mean that half a leaf will be green in colour and the other half will be white, instead of the traditional green colour.
Hrishikesh, sums up by saying, “Being an entrepreneur and a founder means you’re always growing, always pushing yourself further and further out of your comfort zone to achieve the unachievable.”
