Guwahati, May 8: Even as the world spins into a global food crisis, here’s some good news from Assam. Scientists in the Assam Agricultural University have come up with two new varieties of rice that are not only high-yielding and disease-resistant, but also takes a shorter duration than most other common varieties, enabling farmers to find time for other crops as well.

The two new varieties — NBR-2 and NBR-3— both belonging to the “Boro” family developed by the Regional Agricultural Research Station (RARS) of AAU at Silongoni in Nagaon, have already received national recognition during a recent all-India coordinated trial, on the basis of which the Union Agriculture Ministry is expected to soon notify the two as recommended varieties for cultivation on a larger scale.

“The two new varieties are not just high-yielding, disease-resistant and cold-bearing, but also take less seed-to-seed duration— certainly a good news when an imminent food shortage is looming large across the globe,” said Bhubaneswar Barman, chief scientist at the RARS, to whose team goes the credit of developing the two new varieties.

Assam, which had become a rice-surplus state for the first time in 50 years during 2000-01 with a record output of 39.98 lakh metric tonnes, has dangerously slipped down in the subsequent years due to a number of reasons ranging from a drought-like situation to devastating floods.

“While both the varieties that we have developed have higher grain yield compared to earlier varieties, both are also semi-dwarf, with the average height of NBR-2 ranging between 86 and 88 cms, while that of NBR-3 is 92 to 95 cms,” Barman said, pointing out that the height factor would also save a lot of grain from destruction during strong storms when taller plants tend to bend down.

And both varieties also have a lesser sterility rate. While NBR-2 has a sterility rate as low as 8 per cent, that of NBR-3 is just about 10 per cent. “This is much below the accepted norm of 20 per cent and thus would under any circumstance yield anywhere between 63 and 67 quintals per hectare,” the AAU scientist said.

While popular high-yielding varieties—Joymati, Ranjit, Bahadur, Jyotiprasad and Bishnuprasad (all developed by AAU scientists in the past)— had an average seed-to-seed time-frame of a little over 180 days, NBR-2 and NBR-3 have already proved to be over 160 to 165 days, giving the average farmer at least 20 extra days in a year during which he can earn more through rabi crops, Barman said.

Assam right now has a net area of about 25 lakh hectares (combining both winter and autumn rice), of which Boro varieties account for a net area of 3.2 lakh hectares.

Of the remaining area, roughly 18 lakh hectares come under “sali” rice, while the rest is covered by “ahu” rice, with a sprinkling of organic “joha”— an aromatic rice— here and there that has already attracted buyers from abroad.