A farmer at Kumarkhali in Kushtia district has found an extra-High Yield Variety paddy seeds. The newly found seed variety yields 4 to 5 maunds of excess paddy per bigha of land than that of the conventional HYV paddy.
Agriculture Department Officials informed, from this exceptional seed of rice, more yielding variety of paddy may be developed through the gene-crossing with the conventional HYV paddies.
Bangladesh Rice Research Institute sources, however, informed they have already procured this variety of seed and started research to determine the variety of the seed and to add genes aiming to develop a further HYV paddy.
According to sources, two-year ago farm labourer Abdur Razzak son of Sadeque Paramanik of village Kanthaldangi of Kumarkhali found two sheafs of separate variety of paddy inside the BRRI-51 variety of paddy field of Nazrul Islam of neighbouring Elangi village. He collected and perserved the seeds of those separate paddy.
Next year, he cultivated the seeds of the paddy and increased the amount of seeds and this year he cultivated paddy from the separated seeds on 18-decimal of land. He harvested more than 15-maunds ( 600 kgs) of paddy from the field which is 4 to 5 maunds more in compared to any HYV paddy per bigha of land.
Abdur Razzak further informed the sheaf of the newly found paddy looks like the sheaf of date-palm that is why he named the paddy as Khejurchhara.
Former UP chairman Nazrul Islam claimed, 4 to 5 maunds more paddy per bigha of land can be harvested from the Khejurchhara seeds than any other HYV paddy seeds.
Upazila Agriculture Officer of Kumarkhali Debashsish Kumar Das informed, if the gene from this collected paddy seed can be added with other HYV paady seeds, there would be a mile-stone in developing another sort of HYV paddy in the country. He said, the collected seed has already been sent to Rice Research Institute for further research.
Shyamol Kumar Biswas, Deputy Director of Khamarbari Agriculture Extension Department in Kushtia informed, the newly collected variety has already been sent to the laboratory for further research. With the addition of gene with the conventional HYV paddy, further improved variety of HYV paddy may be developed.
