Lakshmi Narayana Crossandra Innovation Centre was started by PadmaShree Dr.T.Venkadapathy Reddiar in the year 1972. He was born on 29th March 1946 to a traditional farming couple Mr. Tambula Reddiar and Mrs. Mangammal. He had to stop his education at class 4 and assist his parents in agricultural works. Since his young age, he had a avid interest in science and dedicated his life to flower cultivation since he believes that flowers play a major role in the life of human from birth to death.

During the heydays of independent India from 1951 - 1960, the science of crossandra propagation was at its infancy. With barely any education, he was the first farmer to start a tissue culture laboratory and propagated the plant through micropropagation. The natural variety of crossandra was prone to fusarium wilt. Initially he collected wild crossandra species from the forest area and crossed it with the cultivated local variety and developed 3 types of lines viz.,

1. Lines which had seed setting ability (Diploid)

2. Seedless sterile lines(Triploid)

3. Lines with partially developed seeds which could not be germinated.

Encouraged by the success he set his sights on Delhi Crossandra, a traditional variety which good give high yield of 20kgs per acre per day. Through the cost of 1 Kg of flower was around Rs 350 this variety could not be propagated by seed because of its triploid nature. He standardized the technique of nodal stem cuttings in mist chamber and distributed several lakhs of Delhi Crossandra plants to farmers, widows and below poverty line people of south India free of cost through Indian bank.

Today LNTC specializes in Crossandra, Ghee Chilli, Casuarina MIQ and Melia Dubia. Ghee chilli is a special variety of capsicum which gives taste of Ghee. The credit of this variety goes to Mrs. Srilakshmi Vengadapathy daughter of Reddiar. Mrs. Srilakshmi was involved with LNTC from a very young age and plays an active part these days who will be carrying forward the legacy of Reddiar. Mrs. Vijayal Venkadapathy, wife of Reddiar, is in charge of production and completes the team. LNTC takes pride in developing innovative varieties and its mission is to empower farmers and lift them out of poverty.