Bangladesh will introduce four more stress-tolerant rice seeds this year — two saline-tolerant and two submergence-tolerant — to scale up production by fighting the effects of climate change.
“The seeds will make us more prepared to face the impact of climate change,” said Anwar Faruque, director general of the seed wing of the agriculture ministry.
The seeds will enter the existing basket of 11 climate-smart rice seeds developed in the last six years as Bangladesh is heavily vulnerable to climate change.
Most of these varieties having capacity to fight salinity, drought and submerged condition have started reaching the farmers through government and international agencies such as International Rice Research Institute.
Of the four stress-tolerant seeds, two saline-resistant high-yielding varieties came from Bangladesh Rice Research Institute.
Bangladesh Institute of Nuclear Agriculture (Bina) has come up with the rest two submergence-resistant seeds in a bid to cushion growers from crop losses due to floods during the aman season.
Helal Uddin Ahmed, BRRI’s chief scientific officer and head of plant breeding division, said the research institute has developed the seeds targeting the boro season in southern Bangladesh.
The two saline-resilient seeds, which are expected to be named BRRI Dhan 61 and 62, have up to 6.5 tonnes of yield potential per hectare at normal condition.
Yields will be four tonnes each hectare under saline condition, said Ahmed.
This will help farmers grow rice during the boro season in the south, where 10 lakh hectares of farmland remain unused during the dry season due to salinity intrusion.
In February, salinity reaches its peak in the southern coastal region and starts declining with the advent of monsoon, according to agriculturists.
The BRRI has earlier developed four saline-resistant rice seeds — BRRI Dhan-47, 53, 54 and 55.
But the new ones will have less shattering (fall of grains before being ripe) rate compared to BRRI Dhan-47, said Ahmed of BRRI.
Bina earlier introduced two saline-resistant seeds — Bina Dhan-8 and Bina Dhan-10 that have already started going to the farmers’ field.
Bina Director (research) MA Salam said the newly developed submergence-tolerant rice seeds will mature early, within 115-125 days, while the normal rate is 140-160 days.
The new seeds will also have the potential to withstand 20-25 days in submerged condition.
These seeds, which are likely to be named Bina Dhan-11 and Bina Dhan-12, will yield 4.5 tonnes to 5.5 tonnes per hectare, said Salam.
All these newly developed rice seeds have been placed at the technical committee of the National Seed Board for approval.
“We expect to release these seeds this year,” said Faruque, the seed wing DG.
Of the already released stress-smart seeds, crop performance of the two submergence-tolerant seeds — BRRI Dhan-51 and 52 — are good, he said.
Bina Dhan-8 also got popularity among farmers in the south, he said.
Wais Kabir, executive director of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council, said new seeds of wheat, pulses and oilseeds will also be released in 2013.
“All are climate change-resilient crops. At the same time, attention will be given to develop crops to bring down farmers’ production cost,” said Kabir, also the head of the technical committee of the National Seed Board.
“These will give us comfort in rice production. Our wheat output will also rise due to the new varieties,” he said.
Bangladesh is almost self-sufficient in rice production. The country bagged 3.38 crore tonnes of rice in fiscal 2011-12, up from 3.35 crore tonnes the previous year — enough to feed its 15 crore population.
-With The Daily Star input
