Agriculture expert dwells on cultivation of rice variety

Tribune News Service
Ludhiana, May 20

An expert of Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) today advised farmers to cultivate PR 126 rice variety, which is resource-use efficient and helps to sustain rice production by addressing the problem of declining water table while maintaining higher profitability.

Dr GS Mangat, additional director of research (Crop Improvement), said late transplanting and transplanting seedlings as old as 25 to 30 days were the major factors to be taken care for realising higher productivity from PR 126.

About the characteristics of the variety, Dr Mangat said: “The variety PR 126 matures in 93 days after transplanting. It matures about three to four earlier than the long-duration varieties (Pusa 44, Peeli Pusa and PR 118). Due to a shorter duration for maturation, PR 126 escapes abiotic stresses as well as the incidence of insect-pests and diseases, thereby, leading to lower cost of cultivation. The straw load of this variety is also lower than that of long duration varieties.”

Dr Mangat also laid stress on adopting water-efficient and economically-viable technologies of paddy production. Amongst such technologies, the selection of short duration variety (such as PR 126) and adoption of improved agronomic practices were the important inputs, he observed.