AP: ANGRAU develops Samba Mahsuri rice variety

Hyderabad, Apr 14: The city-based Directorate of Rice Reserch (DRR) Project Director B V Virakmath said ''Samba Mahsuri (BPT 5204), a rice variety developed by the Acharya N G Ranga Agricultural University (ANGRAU) was very popular.

Widely grown in south India, this superior quality rice variety of late has become popular in northern and eastern parts of the country, he said in a statement here yesterday.

He said among Basmati rice, Pusa Basmati-1 developed by the Indian Agricultural Research Institute(IARI) New Delhi, is very popular high yielding variety grown in Punjab, Haryana, Western Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand regions.

He said the scientists at the DRR here in collaboration with the scientists at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad, had successfully incorporated the three resistant genes by using molecular markers into Samba Mashuri without changing any other characters of this variety through backcross breeding technique.

The bacterial resistant versions of Samba Mahsuri and Pusa Basmati-1 had been identified by the Varietal Identification Committee for recommendations for commercial release recently. These resistant versions of the popular rice varieties were likely to be available to paddy farmers for general cultivation shortly, he added.

UNI