Salinity tolerant paddy coming

Dr. Mirza Mofazzal Islam (2nd from right) along with other scientists examining salinity tolerant paddy seedlings.. PHOTO: STAR

At least 10 lakh hectares of land in coastal areas of greater Khulna and Barisal regions are affected with saline water where locally available varieties are not grown. The innovation will help production of over 30 lakh tonnes of paddy in the areas now facing an ecological disaster due to unplanned cultivation of shrimp, agriculture experts said. Vast tracts of land there also remain fallow now.

Dr Mirza Mofazzal Islam, Senior Scientific Officer of BINA, evolved the varieties of paddy through Gene Mapping (GM) research for over three years. Earlier he worked as a researcher in International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines.

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The BINA project for research on salinity tolerant paddy is funded by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and IRRI.

Local varieties of paddy were used for the research conducted through 'Carbon Isotope discrimination'. Initially the research was done in glass houses at BINA.

Talking to this correspondent, Dr. Mirza said about 95 crore hectares of land including 10 lakh hectares in Bangladesh remain fallow in the world due to salinity. This is a great obstacle to development of agri-sectors throughout the world, worrying the IRRI and other international agencies. To overcome the obstacle, IAEA and IRRI have come forward with research projects to bring fallow lands under cultivation. The BINA project is part of that, he said.

Dr Mirza told The Daily Star that he collected 200 local varieties of paddy from different parts of Bangladesh and selected 75 varieties including 15 mutant varieties, developed by BINA earlier, for search on developing salinity tolerant gene. Three lines were found initially.

These were further developed by applying gene technology in mother varieties in glass houses.

The project is yet in seedling stage at BINA glass houses. The varieties will be screened again at reproductive stage (a stage when seedling will be planted at water tanks made of steel at the glass house) to ascertain their yield performance and then put on field trial, he said.

It will take three to four years more to reach salinity tolerant paddy varieties to farmers in coastal areas, Dr. Mirza said.

"We believed that salinity tolerant genes might be hidden in local varieties, many of which are rarely cultivated now. We took the initiative to search such genes in different popular local varieties and in mutant varieties developed by BINA.

"Our research yielded good results", he said.

The local varieties used in the research included Aswina, Kartiksail, Jingasail. Latasail, Tepa Boro, Dhali Boro, Molla Diga, Kali Boro, Binni Phool, Morach Phool, Hashikalmi, Sunamukhi, Chini Sagar, Chini Atob, Binni Dhan, Bura Horin, Joyna, Kaika, Jangli Boro and Jhora.

"If the salinity tolerant varieties developed at BINA do not give good yield at field level, we will transfer these genes to our high yielding varieties to attain acceptable yield", Dr. Mirza said.

He said there are about 6,000 local varieties and 60 HYV varieties in our country and 5879 Bangladeshi varieties have been preserved at the Gene Bank in IRRI.

Dr Mirza, who obtained Ph.D degree from the University of Philippines Los Banus (UPLB) in 2004 in Molecular Genetics said that salinity tolerant varieties could bring a revolution in rice cultivation in Bangladesh.