What We Do

1.- Selected Seed

 

Plant variety breeding and seed production are essential tasks in agriculture.

 

From the beginnings of the company back in 1969, and as its name itself reveals ('semillas' means 'seeds' in Spanish), Eurosemillas has worked in this line with a clearly-defined goal: to provide growers with a wide range of selected, high-quality seed.

 

Our range of varieties does not only allow growers to choose their best fit according to their particular requirements and weather conditions, but also to have available the best-performing seed in terms of yield, resistance, etc.

 

After 45 years selecting seed, we have more than X seed varieties available within several species: cotton, sunflower, wheat, soybean, green bean, pea, rice, fava bean, chickpea, flax, triticale, maize, barley, safflower, asparagus.

More information on selected seed

 

 

2.- Cotton Ginning

Eurosemillas SA, with locations in the centre of Spain's major cotton-growing areas, has operated in the cotton industry for more than 40 years now, reaching a 20% market share of domestic production.

 

We have 3 cotton ginning plants (Las Cabezas de San Juan, Ecija, Sumbe) adding up to 5 processing lines and a capacity of 3,500 tonnes per day. We also work with a fibre quality control laboratory of our own.

El proceso de desmotado de algodón consiste en:

    1.- Almacenamiento y acondicionamiento del algodón bruto.
    2.- Secado y limpieza del algodón.
    3.- Desmotado propiamente dicho, separando la fibra de la semilla.
    4.- Limpieza de fibra.
    5.- Embalado y ensacado de las balas de fibra.

 

3.- Seed oil Extraction

In order to extract oil from seed, plant cells must first be crushed before isolating the oil from the rest of components.

The process consists of three parts: crushing, pressing and extraction.

Our facility at Los Rosales has a productive capacity of 300 tonnes a day and extracts oil from sunflower, cotton, oilseed rape, soya bean and safflower seed.

We have 7 reception facilities and 1 quality control laboratory to ensure continued supply and supervision.

 

5.- Plant Innovation

In 1987, experts from the University of California arrived at Spain to carry out a study of the strawberry industry. In 1989, Eurosemillas signed its first Master Licensee Agreement with the University of California, who was to become its main plant innovation and technology supplier.

Starting in 1991, the conjunction UC-Eurosemillas-Camarosa becomes an indisputable leader in the Spanish market. The company also begins to open its business to new varieties and foreign markets.

    1990 - 1997: Development of UC varieties in Latin America.
    1998 - 2003: Mediterranean area.
    2003 - 2007: Turkey and expansion into Asia: China, Japan, and India. Mandarin, asparagus, avocado and other fruit species.

The key to success? A long-term investment based on research, technology transfer and producer knowledge resulting in a business model which makes the best out of protection rights.

Different agreements have been reached with other breeding programmes in the past 30 years:

    Raspberry – Scottish Research Crop Institute (Scotland).
    Blueberry – Atlantic Blue (Spain-Germany).
    Maize and Sunflower – Genetic Resources Inc. (Illinois, U.S.).
    Wheat – IRTA (Spain).
    Data Track System – ADS (California, U.S.)
    Cotton – Eurogenetic (Spain).

Today, Eurosemillas represents and manages more than 100 plant varieties within several species and is the first Spanish company by patent-based revenue.

 

6.- I + D

Shared research and development agreements currently in place for obtaining new varieties development and application of molecular technology seeds.