Leader of Rice Varities, Outperforming all others

ICAR-National Rice Research Institute (NRRI), Cuttack organized a “Rice Field Day and Farmers’ Meet” in Chundri village of Ghaghra block in Gumla district, Jharkhand on 3^rd November, 2017 as an activity of the research initiative to fast spread of new NRRI varieties in various states. Over two hundred fifty farmers/farmwomen and about thirty senior officers of the state/central line departments like, Dept. of Agriculture, SAMETI, ATMA, NSC, BAU, local BDO, KVK and scientists of ICAR-NRRI, Cuttack including its regional station at Hazaribag participated.

At the outset of the Field Day, crop cutting experiments were conducted on two newly released NRRI varieties, viz., ‘CR Dhan 202’ (a 110-115 days duration variety suitable for aerobic situation) and ‘CR Dhan 305’ (a 120-125 days duration variety suitable for favourable medium land) in the presence of senior officers like Dr. Subash Singh, Director, SAMETI, Jharkhand; Prof. R.P. Singh, Director (Seed & Farm), BAU; Mr. Vikash Kumar, Dy, Director (Ag. Planning); Mr. Surendra Singh, AM (NSC); Mr. B.K. Soni, BDO (Ghaghra); Mr. Entan Ekka, DDA (Gumla); Dr. R.C. Sinha, DAO; Mr. Aditya Bhagat, Gram Mukhia; Mr. Ajit Kumar, (Dist NFSM Coordinator); Mr. I.P. Pandey, BTM; BAO, SMS of KVK, and six scientists of NRRI, Cuttack including its Hazaribag regional station namely, Dr. G.A.K. Kumar, Dr. S.K. Mishra, Dr. S.M. Prasad, Dr. C.V. Singh, Dr. N.N. Jambhulkar and Dr. Somnath Roy apart from media personnel and large number of farmers and farm women. The crop cutting results showed about 20 per cent grain yield advantage in both the varieties over the local most popular rice variety ‘Sahabhagidhan’ under farmers’ practice.

Later, a Farmers-Scientists-Officers Interaction Meet was organized. In the beginning, Dr. S.K. Mishra, PS & Principal Investigator of the project briefed about the kharif 2017 cluster demonstrations of these two varieties (CR Dhan 202 & CR Dhan 305) in four selected districts, viz., Ranchi, Gumla, Palamau and Garhwa of Jharkhand with the participation of sixty rice farmers (15 from each district) by providing 5 kg seed minikits to each farmer. Invited guests, officers, scientists and participating farmers present on the occasion appreciated the efforts by ICAR-NRRI to demonstrate new varieties in the state and gave their valuable remarks. They all assured to take necessary steps at their respective capacities to popularize and accelerate fast spread of these two varieties in the state by bringing into state seed chain at the earliest and local production of sufficient quantity of foundation and certified seeds. Chief Guest of the function, Dr. Subash Singh, Director, SAMETI advised all the beneficiary farmers not to consume the produces of these two varieties, rather use as seeds and to supply surplus quantity to neighbouring farmers as seeds to replace the low yielding local varieties. The programme was well covered by local print media and electronic media like ETV. At the outset of the meet, Dr. G.A.K. Kumar PS & Co-PI welcomed the guests and participants and at the end, Dr. S.K. Mishra, PS & PI proposed vote of thanks.