Participatory rice variety evaluation at Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Morigaon

HT Correspondent
MORIGAON, Nov 11: A day-long ‘Participatory Rice Varietal Evaluation’ programme was organised by Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Morigaon under Assam Agribusiness and Rural Transformation Project (APART) on Friday.
The programme started with a welcome address by Saurav Baruah, SMS (Soil Sc.). Dr Rijusmita S Deka, senior scientist & head, KVK, Morigaon discussed the main objective of the programme and brief discussion on selection and evaluation of rice varieties. This was followed by a lecture by Indra Mohan Talukdar, DO, Morigaon and Binita Barman, senior ADO, DOA, Morigaon. Also, Porismita Dutta, project associate, Sanju Borgohain, assistant project scientist, Rupam Bonia and Robin Hazarika, research technician were present in the meeting.
Crop Cafeteria is a replicated trial of different (traditional, prevalent or newly introduced) rice varieties at a particular place to enable the stakeholders/ farmers to select a suited rice variety of their preference in a particular region/agro-climatic zone. The rice varieties are raised in such a manner that all the varieties have synchronous flowering/maturity at the same time/period. Ten numbers of variety were established in the cafeteria field.
The main focus was on spot varietal evaluation by different stakeholders such as private seed growers, extension functionaries, farmers, farmer producer companies, rice millers, scientists, DoA-ATMA and other government officials, etc. These varietal selections by the stakeholders were based on important yield parameters such as grain type /quality and other crop characteristics and it also focused on creating awareness about different STRVs and PQR varieties among different stakeholders for its faster adoption.
The programme included an evaluation of varieties by the farmers present. A total of 50 participants from different locations were present in the programme. They were given four different colour tags for positive and negative voting to the male and female participants. The farmers voted based on the phenotypic characteristics which resulted in the variety Bina Dhan 11 to be the best.
The programme was appreciated by everyone present and was concluded with the vote of thanks by Porismita Dutta.