11th Annual Hill Rice Research Group Meeting

ICAR-IIRR organised 11^th Annual Hill Rice Research Group Meeting on 23^rd February 2024 in virtual mode

11^th Annual Hill Rice Research Group Meeting was conducted online on 23^rd February 2024 under the chairmanship of Dr T R Sharma, DDG (Crop Science), ICAR, Co-chaired by Dr S K Pradhan, ADG (FFC), ICAR. The meeting was attended by Dr A K Naik, Director ICAR NRRI, Dr. R.P.Kaushik, Chairman PAMC, PI AICRPR (Dr ASVS Swamy) and Co-PIs of different disciplines from ICAR IIRR and all Co-operators of the Hill locations. Dr. R M Sundaram, Director, ICAR IIRR Hyderabad welcomed the participants and gave brief introductory remarks on Hill workshop. Dr A K Naik expressed that work in Hill ecology should be focused on drought and cold tolerance, iron and Al toxicity tolerance etc. Dr AVSR Swamy presented the Research Highlights of Hill region along with action taken report. Dr. R.P.Kaushik shared his experience on Hill rice ecology for the last 20 years and felt that there is a need for making crosses between rice genotypes of Jammu & Kashmir, Uttarkhand, Himachal Pradesh with genotypes of North Eastern states. Dr S K Pradhan suggested working on candidate genes available for iron toxicity tolerance, Al toxicity tolerance and cold tolerance. Dr T R Sharma emphasised the need of pre-breeding for bringing new genes from wild relatives for Hill ecology. He felt the need for product profiling of Hill ecology by considering the factors like high yield, cold tolerance, resistance to leaf and neck blast, biofortification of Fe and Zn, drought tolerance and early maturity. Host differentials or monogenic lines for blast resistance should be made use for improving disease resistance of Hill ecology. He suggested identifying Japonica variety suitable for export quality. Director IIRR told that genotyping of entries in AVT2 and AVT1 trials is under progress using 1 K Rica and results will be shared with co-operators. He assured to help Hill ecology centres for taking up off-season nursery at ICAR IIRR and ICAR NRRI and also for genotyping of some of the important genotypes. The inaugural session was ended with vote of thanks by Dr M B B Prasad Babu.