Irri Developing uper Rice' Variety

The Philippines-based Interna-tional Rice Research Institute (IRRI) is trying to develop a `super rice' with entirely different architecture of the paddy plant in a bid to pierce through present yield barrier.

Besides, it is also endeavouring to evolve means of exploiting the untapped production potential of the present rice varieties to boost the output of this staple crop to meet the burgeoning requirement.

This was indicated at a press conference addressed jointly by IRRI director-general G H L Rothschild and Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) director-general R S Paroda.

They said IRRI and ICAR, the largest and the most reliable farm research system in the developing world, were working in close cooperation to achieve this objective. Giving details of the `super rice', Rothschild said though the new rice plant types being evolved at IRRI had ugly looks, they had desirable traits like sturdy stems, large panicles, dark green leaves and a robust root system. The architecture of the plant was such as would allow the maximum sun light to be trapped for conversion into food. Rothschild, however, said he was not very happy with calling it a super rice as this plant still had to overcome some physiological constraints.

 

Under tropical (hot) conditions, grain filling was a problem. It may, therefore, had to be crossed with some of the available good tropical rice types to get a plant suitable for cultivation in this part of the world.

Rothschild said the ultimate objective was to raise the output potential of the rice plant by 50 per cent from the present ceiling of 10 tonnes a hectare. Practically, it might be possible to raise the productivity by about 25 per cent to 12.5 tonnes a hectare.

He said in the immediate future, there was good possibility of raising production through hybrid rice. China and India were already exploiting these hybrids to meet their growing demands.

Paroda pointed out that at lease seven rice hybridswere already available in the country. They had a yield advantage of about one tonne a hectare over the best conventional varieties. The plan was to expand the area under hybrid rice from the present 60,000 hectare to about two million hectares by year 2000.de virtual="/incs/bottom.inc"-->