PAU Develops and Recommends 8 New Varieties of Rice & Other Crops

For general cultivation in Punjab, the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) has developed and recommended eight new rice, cotton, maize, mash, and fodder types. PR 131 and PR 130 rice varieties, PAU Bt 2 and PAU Bt 3 cotton varieties, Punjab Baby Corn 1 maize variety, Mash 883 mash variety, SL 45 fodder (sorghum) variety, and PCB 166 fodder variety (bajra).

The varieties were accepted following a lengthy discussion at a meeting of the State Variety Approval Committee for Field Crops, which was chaired by Dr Gurvinder Singh, Punjab's Director of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare. Dr. AS Dhatt, Director of Research, and Dr. Ashok Kumar, Director of Extension Education, were also present at the conference.

The PR 131 rice variety is a high-yielding, lodging-resistant variety. The PAU Bt 2 cotton variety is a Bt cotton with built-in resistance to spotted and American bollworms.

Few days back, PAU’s plant breeding dept developed wonder millet variety, that is touted as the perfect food for diabetes.

Dr. Ruchika Bhardwaj from the department of plant breeding and genetics at the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), who is working as the millets breeder was recognized and appreciated by the Government of India when she developed pearl millets that have a higher level of zinc and iron and lower level of glycaemic index, which makes it the perfect food for diabetics.

Furthermore, the crops can resist temperatures of up to 42 degrees Celsius in extreme weather. However, it wasn't an immediate success. For the past ten years, Bhardwaj has been heavily interested in pearl millet breeding and research. She's created several trait-specific cultivars of both fodder and grain pearl millet.

Dr. Bhardwaj’s work in developing trait-specific varieties of high zinc and iron content pearl millets was appreciated by the PAMC committee of ICAR-AICRP.