Puducherry’s Panjancoa researchers develop a rice variety that survives floods

By Bosco Dominique

A team of researchers from Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru college of agriculture and research institute (Panjancoa) has developed a new rice variety that can survive floods. The researchers led by head (plant breeding and genetics) S Thirumeni developed the rice variety with the financial assistance from the department of biotechnology, government of India.

“The average yield of this variety is 6,850kg per hectare under normal conditions and 3,600kg per hectare under submerged conditions,” said Thirumeni while explaining the nature of the new variety of rice in surviving floods.

“Flash floods are serious abiotic stress in low-lying areas. The floods reduce rice productivity resulting in huge economic loss to the farmers. If the north-east monsoon (October-December) is good, we get abundant rain. Sometimes more than we need. It is samba/ thaladi season and the crops submerged shortly in flash floods affecting the yield to a large extent,” said Thirumeni.

He said the aim was to develop a variety that is suitable for flood-prone areas with ‘great submergence tolerance’ level and simultaneously giving high yield.
“We developed the new rice variety by crossing ADT 46*3 crop through marker-assisted backcrossing (MABC) at our institute with the financial assistance of the department of biotechnology. We are happy that the central variety release committee has recommended our new rice variety for cultivation in the flood-prone areas in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry,” said Thirumeni.

This article has been republished from The Times of India.