Sahbhagi Dhan drought-tolerant rice tested in India

BBC has reported that a new variety of rice, called the Sahbhagi Dhan rice, is being tested in the fields of Eastern Jharkhand. The rice is said to be able to withstand long drought patches.Normally, rice is one crop that requires a lot of water; a drought period of even five days can damage the harvest severely. But the newly researched variety of rice can withstand a drought patch of up to 12 days.

Sahbhagi Dhan rice is the product of 15 years of hard work and toil of agriculture scientists at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) situated in Los Banos, South of Manila, along with partners that include the Central Rainfed Upland Rice Research Station in Hazaribag, Jharkhand.

Upland refers to rain deficient lands and nearly six million hectares of land comes under this category in India.

“A drought can occur anytime between 15 June and 15 September – the season in which rice is cultivated. Sometimes there can be gaps of five to 15 days between spells of rain,” Mukund Variar, agricultural scientist, has been quoted as saying, by BBC.

“If there’s a dry spell when the seed is sown, or the flower is just emerging, even a five-day drought can be very dangerous for most varieties of rice. But Sahbhagi can tolerate a dry spell of 10 to 12 days,” he added.

According to agriculturists, Sahbhagi Dhan rice has shown positive results with its field trails in 2006.

IRRI says that two more sister lines of the rice have shown enhanced productivity in drought conditions and farmers can cultivate them in rain scarce areas in India and Philippines.

The lines were tested under aerobic and alternate wetting and drying situations and showed good yield as in the case of rice that needs abundant water.

“Given that water shortages are expected to affect 15 to 20 million hectares (37 to 49 million acres) of irrigated rice within 25 years, farmers could deal with the crisis through smart crop management and genetically modified crops, areas being researched by other countries as well,” the IRRI was quoted as saying.

Other reports say that Syngenta, based in Basel, Switzerland, which had plans to come up with a biotech research and technology center in Beijing are also on the lookout for such drought tolerant crops.

They focus would be on corn and soy and genetically modified crops that could enhance yield and also be drought-resistant.