Sahbhagidhan - The first climate resilient rice variety for drought prone ecosystems

Abstract

In recent years, because of the frequent occurrence of drought stress, there is yield decline in rice, and the climate change predicts that water deficit will further deteriorate in the coming years. To stabilize the production in the rainfed droughtprone areas, there is a growing need for climate resilient technologies which can tolerate the vagaries of weather. Drought tolerant varieties provide opportunities for improving and stabilizing productivity in drought-prone areas, thereby contributing to National Food Security. Due to sustained efforts made by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare and partners through different schemes, Sahbhagidhan has been extensively spread to the farmers leading to its large-scale adoption. Because of its shorter duration, this variety provides a window of opportunity for increasing cropping intensity to enhance overall productivity under both the rainfed and irrigated ecosystem. The unique feature of Sahbhagidhan is its climate resiliency, not only this variety showed high tolerance against drought but also there is no yield penalty when grown under non-stress condition in comparison to other varieties of similar duration, making it one of the attractive option for stress-prone ecology. Large scale adoption of this variety will not only enhance but also stabilize the rice production in drought-prone areas of the country.