Pakistan, Chinese researchers on the brink of hybrid rice breakthrough

LAHORE: Pakistani and Chinese researchers are close to developing a hybrid variety of ‘Basmati’ rice with an average per acre yield of 80 maunds (40 kilogrammes) and average grain length of 8mm and above, an industry official said on Monday.

China’s Longping High-Tech Industries and Guard Agriculture Research and Services Private Ltd (Guard Agri) have been jointly working to create a high-yield hybrid basmati rice variety for the last five years.

“We are very near to achieve the targets after a hard work of five to six years,” said Shahzad Ali Malik, Chief Executive Guard Agri, while talking to economic and agriculture journalist associations at the company’s head office.

“Our scientists in collaboration with their Chinese counterparts have developed 13 CMS (cytoplasmic male sterility) lines out of which one variety is giving 75 maunds per acres with the average grain length of 7 mm, slightly short of our targeted 80 maunds/acre.”

Malik said the scientists were given the task to develop a variety which should be heat- and drought-tolerant besides being salinity resistant and the company started working on the development of basmati hybrid in 2014.

Pioneer in introducing high yielding hybrid varieties of coarse rice, Guard established in 1989, is involved in basic as well as applied research for the development of hybrid rice varieties in collaboration with Longping High-Tech Industries and have achieved full technology transfer in the field of hybrid rice with a feather, of being market a leader in hybrid rice seed, in its cap.

The Guard official said since the introduction of hybrid rice in Sindh, the income of rice farmers had doubled because of the double yield of hybrid rice as compared to IRRI varieties.

“Due to early maturing hybrid rice crop, timely sowing of Rabi crops is ensured as crops cultivated on time result in a significant increase in per acre yield which consequently increases farmers’ income, while having a shorter maturity period, hybrid rice can be planted in late season,” he said.

Malik stressed the need to bring new hybrid rice because yields of existing rice varieties were low and stagnant. “The low rice yields do not match with the increasing cost of inputs and because of increasing cost Pakistan is becoming noncompetitive in the international market,” the official said.

He added that declining land resources and water shortages were also serious issues that could only be solved by the adoption of hybrid rice. Malik said the company was also introducing combine harvesters, rice transplanters, and other implements to promote mechanisation in this field and these will be introduced to farmers on rental basis.

To a question, he said to cash in on the opportunities existing in Iran, the second biggest market of Basmati rice after Saudi Arabia, Pakistan needs to protect the rice exporters. “Pakistan does not have any cash swap treaty with Iran, exporters have proposed barter trade with Iran,” he mentioned and hoped that soon Pakistan will have a barter agreement with Iran of importing liquefied petroleum gas against Pakistani rice.

The Guard official also urged the need for increasing production and supply and exploring new markets, stressing that hybrid seeds could boost agricultural yield that could help the country achieve the export target of $5 billion in the next five years.