Crop Improvement Division
The Crop Improvement Division is engaged in basic, strategic and applied research for genetic improvement of rice besides knowledge generation on relevant aspects. Scientists from the disciplines of Economic Botany & Plant Genetic Resources, Genetics & Plant Breeding and Agricultural Biotechnology are involved in multidisciplinary research in collaboration with scientists from other Divisions of the institute. Besides the in-house research projects, the researchers of the Division are also involved in various national and international collaborative external funded research projects. The division undertakes research on varietal improvement through various means along with research on taxonomy, plant genetic resources, classical genetics, cytogenetics, mutagenesis, in-vitro culture, bioinformatics, genomics etc. of rice. Molecular marker assisted breeding has now become an integral part of crop Improvement programme of the division. Eleven different research projects under the programme “Genetic improvement of rice for enhancing yield, quality and climate resilience” are undertaken by the Division. Till date, 125 pureline varieties and 03 hybrids have been released (out of which 80 were released by Central Variety Release Committee and 48 by different State Variety Release Committees) for different rice ecologies of India. Nucleus and breeder seed of the released varieties are produced for all the released varieties as per the indent received from the Department of Agriculture and Cooperation, Government of India.