Scientists of Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) have developed four high yielding varieties of paddy, another remarkable feat in the country’s food security attainment. The National Seed Board on Monday gave its approval for release of the seeds of the four paddy varieties at the farmers’ level for cultivation. The paddy varieties are: BRRI 59, BRRI 60 and BRRI 61 for boro and BRRI 62 for aman season. BRRI researchers said of the four varieties, BRRI 62 is most-discussed because this is an advanced variety enriched with zinc. So the variety is supposed to meet the requirement of micronutrient necessary for human body.
The variety is one first developed in the globe through bio-fortified system. Since the duration of its cultivation is up to 100 days, farmers will get sufficient benefit from it. The average production from the variety, most advanced and of shortest duration developed so far, is 3.5 tonnes per hectare. If properly nurtured, this variety may give yield up to 4.5 to 5 tonnes per hectare.
This variety was developed by mixing local paddy zira katari and BRRI 39 through traditional breeding system. It is expected that consumption of the rice enriched with zinc will highly remove malnutrition. Particularly, this rice will help protect child health. BRRI has so far developed 65 high yielding varieties of paddy, including the recently developed four. Of them, most popular varieties at the farmers’ level are BRRI 28 and BRRI 29 for boro season, with highest production capacity. For aman season, BRRI 11 variety too has achieved similar success.
