Projected RMB 5 Million (US$0.74M) in Immediate Cash Flow
BEIJING, Aug. 05, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Origin Agritech Ltd. (NASDAQ: SEED) (the “Company” or “Origin”), a leading Chinese agricultural technology company, today announced that it has secured exclusive nationwide rights to Zhongdan 6202, the flagship early-maturing corn hybrid developed under China's National Key Research and Development Program of the 14th Five-Year Plan. Under the agreement signed with the Institute of Crop Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (“CAAS”), Origin Agritech holds exclusive rights across the full commercial chain — seed production, sales and marketing, demonstration promotion, and intellectual property enforcement — for a variety that carries national registration approval and three consecutive years of national trial data behind it.
The agreement moves a state-funded breeding breakthrough out of the research institute and into commercial production. CAAS bred Zhongdan 6202 over four years of publicly funded work; Origin Agritech will carry it the last mile — from experimental plot to farm gate — through the distributor, cooperative, and agronomic service network the Company has built across Northeast and North China. That handoff, from laboratory to open field, is the step at which most state-funded varieties in China stall.
“CAAS handed us a hybrid that has already cleared national registration and three years of regional and production trials, which means we are not spending the next four years proving whether it works — we are spending them getting it into the ground,” said Weibin Yan, Chief Executive Officer of Origin Agritech. “Zhongdan 6202 solves the problem large-scale Northeast growers have been living with: an early-maturing hybrid they can run a combine through without shattering the kernel. Our objective is to make it the benchmark variety for the East-Northeast early-maturing machine-harvest belt, and we have committed demonstration acreage, channel capacity, and field agronomy support to that objective beginning with the fiscal 2026 planting cycle.”
The exclusive license was formalized at a signing ceremony held on July 15, 2026, at the Institute of Crop Sciences in Beijing. Li Xinhai, Director General of the Science and Technology Management Bureau of CAAS, addressed the ceremony, characterizing Zhongdan 6202 as a signature deliverable of the national 14th Five-Year Plan seed initiative, developed to close two specific gaps: the shortage of machine-harvestable germplasm in the East-Northeast early-maturing corn region, and China's dependence on external sources for elite corn genetics. Director General Li cited Origin Agritech's established nationwide promotion system and downstream industrial capability as the reason the Institute selected the Company. He stated that the Institute intends this license to be the first layer of a longer-term, full-chain research and commercialization relationship spanning biotechnology R&D, elite variety selection, commercial development, and market deployment.
Financial Outlook:
Origin Agritech expects Zhongdan 6202 to contribute incremental cash flow of approximately RMB 5 million (approximately US$0.7 million) in fiscal year 2026 (ending September 30), approximately RMB 20 million (approximately US$2.9 million) in fiscal year 2027, and approximately RMB 40 million (approximately US$5.9 million) in fiscal year 2028 — approximately RMB 65 million (approximately US$9.6 million) cumulatively. The ramp reflects a phased rollout that begins with demonstration plantings and scales up to full channel deployment across the target region. These are forward-looking estimates and are subject to the risks described below in our Forward Looking Statements.
Commercialization Roadmap:
- FY2026 — Demonstration. Establish approximately 1,000 mu (approximately 165 acres) of demonstration plots across counties in Heilongjiang, Jilin, Shanxi, and Inner Mongolia, sited to showcase machine-harvestability, disease resistance, and yield advantages for distributors and large-scale growers under working field conditions.
- FY2027 — Channel activation. Expand seed production volume and open full-channel distribution through Origin Agritech's established Northeast dealer network, planting cooperatives, and large-farm accounts.
- FY2028 — Scale and service. Drive broad commercial penetration with integrated mechanized cultivation protocols, in-season field management guidance, and pest and disease control support bundled with the seed.
Zhongdan 6202 originated in the National Key R&D Program project 2021YFD1201004, led by Researcher Li Mingshun and his team at the Institute of Crop Sciences. The program targeted the constraints holding back productivity in China's northern corn belt: a narrow genetic base in early-maturing germplasm, few varieties suited to direct mechanical grain harvest, and weak resistance to disease and abiotic stress. Integrating gene editing, molecular marker-assisted selection, and doubled-haploid breeding, the team produced more than 20 elite breeding materials and 12 high-combining-ability inbred lines. Zhongdan 6202 is the flagship hybrid to emerge from that pipeline.
Performance and Quality Characteristics of Zhongdan 6202:
- Early maturity and cold tolerance: 122 days from emergence to maturity in the Northern Early-Maturing Spring Corn group, matched to high-latitude spring planting zones.
- Machine-ready grain: low kernel breakage at combine harvest and semi-flint grain with a test weight of 758 g/L (approximately 58.9 lb/bu, above the U.S. No. 1 grade standard of 56 lb/bu), enabling direct grain harvest and lower post-harvest handling cost.
- Disease and stress resistance: high resistance to Fusarium stalk rot and moderate resistance to ear rot in registration trials, with demonstrated standability against lodging and stalk breakage; the Company describes the variety's combined profile as multi-disease resistant with tolerance to drought and low-fertility soils.
- Yield: 2022 regional trials averaged 813.93 kg/mu (12.21 t/ha, approximately 194 bu/acre), 4.45% above the Demeiya 3 control; 2023 regional trials averaged 827.66 kg/mu (12.41 t/ha, approximately 198 bu/acre), 8.36% above control; 2024 production trials averaged 776.57 kg/mu (11.65 t/ha, approximately 186 bu/acre), 4.39% above control, with positive yield response at 85% of trial locations.
- Composition: 74.8% crude starch, 8.1% crude protein, and 4.7% crude fat, supporting both feed and industrial processing end markets.
- Density tolerance: semi-compact architecture at 310 cm plant height (approximately 10.2 feet) and 114 cm ear height (approximately 3.7 feet), optimized for 5,000 plants/mu (75,000 plants/hectare, approximately 30,350 plants/acre).
Grower Economics:
Origin Agritech estimates that the combination of higher planting density, reduced harvest loss, and lower drying and handling costs delivers more than RMB 50 per mu (approximately US$7 per mu, or roughly US$45 per acre) in combined cost savings and incremental revenue to the grower relative to competing early-maturing varieties. In a seed market where switching decisions are made one season at a time, that per-mu figure is the mechanism by which demonstration acreage converts into repeat commercial orders.
The Northeast China spring corn region — Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, and Inner Mongolia — accounts for approximately 41% of China's total corn acreage and 47% of national corn output. Within that footprint, the early-maturing segment that Zhongdan 6202 serves is the zone where mechanized harvest penetration is advancing fastest, and where the shortage of hybrids bred specifically for direct grain harvest has been most acute. China's corn production has grown at an annual rate of 4.67% over the past two decades, reaching 289 million metric tons (approximately 11.4 billion bushels) in 2023, against national targets of 320 million metric tons (approximately 12.6 billion bushels) by 2030. Because acreage expansion is largely exhausted, yield improvement — from a national average of 435 kg/mu (approximately 104 bu/acre) toward a 500 kg/mu target (approximately 120 bu/acre) by 2030 — carries the burden of that growth. Higher-yielding registered hybrids are the primary instrument for closing that gap.
“This license is the first layer of what we expect to become a long-term, full-chain relationship with CAAS,” Mr. Yan added. “The Institute produces core germplasm with independent intellectual property; we have spent two decades building the channel, processing, and agronomic service infrastructure to move it. Pairing top-tier research with industrial-scale deployment is how national breeding investment reaches the farm, and we intend to run that pairing across additional varieties, not just this one.”
Note: The translation of Renminbi (RMB) into U.S. dollars (US$) is based on the exchange rate of RMB 6.79 to US$1.00 solely for the convenience of the reader.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding projected cash flow contribution from Zhongdan 6202, planned demonstration acreage, expected commercialization timing and channel deployment, anticipated grower economics, and the scope and duration of the Company's relationship with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Words such as “expects,” “projects,” “anticipates,” “intends,” “believes,” and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements. These statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties — including grower adoption rates, seed production yields and inventory timing, weather and growing conditions across the target region, competitive variety introductions, pricing pressure in the Chinese seed market, regulatory and agricultural policy developments in China, currency fluctuation, and the Company's ability to fund and execute the commercialization plan described above — which may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. Field trial results are not a guarantee of on-farm performance across all conditions. Origin Agritech undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.
About Origin Agritech Limited
Origin Agritech Limited, founded in 1997 and headquartered at the Origin R&D Center in Songzhuang, Tongzhou, Beijing, is a leading Chinese agricultural technology company. In crop seed biotechnologies, Origin Agritech’s phytase corn was the first transgenic corn to receive the Bio-Safety Certificate from China’s Ministry of Agriculture. Over the years, Origin has established a robust biotechnology seed pipeline, including products with glyphosate tolerance and pest resistance (Bt) traits. For further information, please visit the Company’s website at https://originagritech.com. The Company also maintains an X account to update investors on Company and industry developments, available at https://x.com/origin_agritech.
For more information, please contact:
Origin Agritech Limited Contact:
Kate Lang (Mandarin/English)
Director of Investor Relations
Phone: +86 186-1839-3368
Email: bing.lang@originseed.com.cn
Investor Relations Contact:
Matthew Abenante, IRC
President
Strategic Investor Relations, LLC
Tel: 347-947-2093
Email: matthew@strategic-ir.com
