ICAR-NRRI-Central Rainfed Upland Rice Research Station (CRURRS)Hazaribag, Jharkhand
Central Rainfed Upland Rice Research Station (CRURRS) was established in Hazaribag of Jharkhand state in 1980 with specific mandate of catering to the need of improved technology for enhancing rice based agricultural productivity of rainfed uplands which covers about 13.5% rice growing area of India. Rainfed uplands are mostly located in the eastern parts of the country covering the states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Assam, parts of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Rainfed uplands in india are characterized by aerobic to semi aerobic soils conditions, absence of surface water accumulation, dependence on monsoon having erratic distribution, plain to slopping topography. These characters make the target ecology very much prone to unpredictable drought situations at various crop growth phases and a few biotic stresses, of which some of them are accentuated under drought stress.
Mandate:
- To develop suitable technologies to increase rice productivity and sustainability through applied and strategic research and to disseminate them.
- To collect, maintain and evaluate dryland rice germplasm.
- To characterize dryland rice situations and develop mixed and sequence cropping.
Thrust Area of Research:
- To breed resilient high yielding rice varieties suitable for drought-prone rainfed uplands
- To strategize management options for sustainable rice production under direct seeded rainfed ecology
- To evolve rice based farming systems for drought prone rainfed ecology
- To develop biotic stress management strategies for rainfed upland rice
Salient Achievements
- Variety developed:
- For favorable uplands:Vandana, Anjali, CR Dhan 40, Purna& CR Dhan 103
- For unfavorable uplands:Sadabahar, Sahbhagidhan&GangavatiAgeti
- For drought-prone shallow lowlands: Hazaridhan, Abhishek & IR 64-Drt1
- Improved drought tolerance through Marker-assisted backcross breedingof rice varieties:
- For upland: Anjali & Vandana
- For medium land: IR64Sub1
- Standardized direct seeding technology for unfavorable and favorable uplands
- Seed invigoration techniques giving a head start to rice over weeds
- Early post emergence herbicides for weed control
- Blast resistance in two HYVs improved through introgression of major R genes (Pi2 into Vandana and Pi9
into BPT 5204). - HPR/chemicals/cultural practices to manage blast, brown spot and false smut
- IPM strategy for upland rice
- Incubation methods for phosphetic fertilizers to improve P efficiency
- Utilization of beneficial soil microflora to enhance P uptake with special reference to ArbuscularMycorhiza Fungi (AMF)
- Combinations of inter – and sequence crops for different moisture regimes
Future Targets
- To develop ICM for direct seeded rice under rainfed uplands;
- targeting 4-5 t/ha yield under unfavorable (unbunded) uplands
- targeting 6-7 t/ha yield under favorable (bunded) uplands