Pakistani & Chinese Researchers Announce A Breakthrough in Hybrid Basmati Rice

[Zibago]

21 hours ago by Hasan Saeed

Researchers from Pakistan and China are nearing a breakthrough in the development of a hybrid version of Basmati rice that will have an average per acre yield of 80 maunds (40 kilograms) and average grain length of 8 mm or above.

Longping High-Tech Industries from China and Pakistan’s Guard Agriculture Research and Services Private Ltd (Guard Agri) have been collaborating to produce a high-yield hybrid variety of rice in the past few years.




We are very near to achieving the targets after the hard work of five to six years.
Speaking to the economic and agriculture journalist associations at the company’s head office, Chief Executive Guard Agri, Shahzad Ali Malik said:

Our scientists in collaboration with their Chinese counterparts have developed 13 CMS (cytoplasmic male sterility) lines out of which one variety is giving 75 maunds per acres with the average grain length of 7 mm, slightly short of our targeted 80 maunds/acre.

He added that the experts in 2014 had been given the goal to develop a variety that would be salinity, heat and drought-resistant.

Officials at Guard Agri said that ever since hybrid rice was introduced in Sindh, the rice farmers had seen their incomes doubled due to the increased yield of rice as compared to traditional varieties.

Mentioning the benefits of hybrid rice, Malik said:

Due to early maturing hybrid rice crop, timely sowing of Rabi crops is ensured as crops cultivated on time result in a significant increase in per acre yield which consequently increases farmers’ income, while having a shorter maturity period.

Malik underlined the need to bring new hybrid rice as existing rice varieties were giving low yields. He said:

The low rice yields do not match with the increasing cost of inputs and because of increasing cost Pakistan is becoming noncompetitive in the international market.

He reiterated that severe issues like water shortage could be managed by the adoption of hybrid rice. The company is also introducing combined harvesters, rice transplanters, and other ways on a rental basis to boost mechanization in this sector.

To a query, he said there was a huge potential in trading with Iran, the second-largest market of Basmati rice after Saudi Arabia, and the country needed to safeguard the rice exporters. He added that “Pakistan does not have any cash swap treaty with Iran, and the exporters have proposed barter trade with Iran,”.

Pakistan might hopefully enter a barter agreement with Iran whereby we would trade Pakistani rice against liquefied petroleum gas from Iran, he further told.
https://propakistani.pk/2019/08/30/...Kf_0j4r2ggOF4pn7JXXsBNA9oI2IK9X2baeauHS6BqkD0

 

[Dual Wielder]

Pakistan might hopefully enter a barter agreement with Iran whereby we would trade Pakistani rice against liquefied petroleum gas from Iran, he further told.

Brilliant news!

 

[Pakistansdefender]

Brilliant news!

But the GMO... no thanks

Hybrid is not gmo .
Please don't start the gmo Debate . Usually in pdf the 1st few post decides how the debate is going to be .
And it has been debated thousand times.
Hybrid verities are not gmo .

 

[Clutch]

Hybrid is not gmo .
Please don't start the gmo Debate . Usually in pdf the 1st few post decides how the debate is going to be .
And it has been debated thousand times.
Hybrid verities are not gmo .

Actually most people don't realize that most of our current foods are hybrids and part of human intervention.

GMO is a different branch of food Science and something I am against. But it is commonly confused by the Organic Food trend people.

Here is an example of how through natural human engineering we have changed our foods over time...

 

[TNT]

The edge of Pakistani basmati rice is its aroma and taste. This should be preserved as its our qualitative edge over others.

 

[Pakistansdefender]

Actually most people don't realize that most of our current foods are hybrids and part of human intervention.

GMO is a different branch of food Science and something I am against. But it is commonly confused by the Organic Food trend people.

Here is an example of how through natural human engineering we have changed our foods over time...

Similarly there are 1000s of verity of roses which are plant of same verity hybridized by breeders.
Same with iris's daffodils and every plant on earth. You would find so many verities of oranges though all are citrus fruits but taste different .
The best example for a laymen is that you eat mangoes. All are mangoes but different verities .

 

[PakSword]

21 hours ago by Hasan Saeed

Researchers from Pakistan and China are nearing a breakthrough in the development of a hybrid version of Basmati rice that will have an average per acre yield of 80 maunds (40 kilograms) and average grain length of 8 mm or above.

Longping High-Tech Industries from China and Pakistan’s Guard Agriculture Research and Services Private Ltd (Guard Agri) have been collaborating to produce a high-yield hybrid variety of rice in the past few years.




We are very near to achieving the targets after the hard work of five to six years.
Speaking to the economic and agriculture journalist associations at the company’s head office, Chief Executive Guard Agri, Shahzad Ali Malik said:

Our scientists in collaboration with their Chinese counterparts have developed 13 CMS (cytoplasmic male sterility) lines out of which one variety is giving 75 maunds per acres with the average grain length of 7 mm, slightly short of our targeted 80 maunds/acre.

He added that the experts in 2014 had been given the goal to develop a variety that would be salinity, heat and drought-resistant.

Officials at Guard Agri said that ever since hybrid rice was introduced in Sindh, the rice farmers had seen their incomes doubled due to the increased yield of rice as compared to traditional varieties.

Mentioning the benefits of hybrid rice, Malik said:

Due to early maturing hybrid rice crop, timely sowing of Rabi crops is ensured as crops cultivated on time result in a significant increase in per acre yield which consequently increases farmers’ income, while having a shorter maturity period.

Malik underlined the need to bring new hybrid rice as existing rice varieties were giving low yields. He said:

The low rice yields do not match with the increasing cost of inputs and because of increasing cost Pakistan is becoming noncompetitive in the international market.

He reiterated that severe issues like water shortage could be managed by the adoption of hybrid rice. The company is also introducing combined harvesters, rice transplanters, and other ways on a rental basis to boost mechanization in this sector.

To a query, he said there was a huge potential in trading with Iran, the second-largest market of Basmati rice after Saudi Arabia, and the country needed to safeguard the rice exporters. He added that “Pakistan does not have any cash swap treaty with Iran, and the exporters have proposed barter trade with Iran,”.

Pakistan might hopefully enter a barter agreement with Iran whereby we would trade Pakistani rice against liquefied petroleum gas from Iran, he further told.
https://propakistani.pk/2019/08/30/...Kf_0j4r2ggOF4pn7JXXsBNA9oI2IK9X2baeauHS6BqkD0

@Dubious for you

 

[Dubious]

@Dubious for you

Yea we have hybrid wheat that was field tested I think 1-2 years back.
Finally some work to improve our crops..
This would be cool...

 

[Menace2Society]

Pakistan needs to take the lead in organic farming. Allowing GMO on your soil is treason.

 

[Dubious]

Pakistan needs to take the lead in organic farming. Allowing GMO on your soil is treason.

This is not GMO

 

[Rusty]

Hybred and GMO are basically the same thing.

Hybrid is selecting for a gene (or genes) and then spending lots of time and effort breeding it so that the whole population will have that gene.

GMO is taking that same gene, cutting and pasting it using technology and saving tons of time and effort.

End result is the same.

Pakistan needs to take the lead in organic farming. Allowing GMO on your soil is treason.

do you eat food?
If you do, you already eat GMO.

Wheat, rice, fruits, etc do not exist in nature.

Wheat, for example, was GMOed 10,000 years ago.

This is what non GMO wheat looks like.

https://phys.org/news/2017-11-genome-wheat-ancestor-sequenced.html

 

[IbnAbdullah]

Salaam

Basmati rice has certain standards set and decided internationally. There is a reason why the Indians - who have been at the forefront of developing new Basmati varieties - haven't gone the hybrid way.

Besides I've heard of the newer basmati varieties reaching nearly 70mund (I know of someone who got 67 mund) so the nonhybrid varieties aren't too far behind. The duration is also closer to the usual hybrid varieties instead of the traditional basmati ones.

I've heard newer ones coming out with higher potential.

So I hope the relevant departments will ensure only those varieties come out under basmati title which meet the international standards set for basmati. Otherwise we could suffer serious loss in valuable exports.

 

[Cookie Monster]

This is not GMO

Any food where human intervention selected for certain genes in a species is "genetically modified"(hence GMO). Corn used to be very small and not so carb rich...over thousands of years it has been modified to its current form we see today. Here is a comparison...

This is no different than humans using more precise methods to edit genes directly. There are many such examples of humans modifying pretty much everything we eat. We have been doing it since the beginning of agriculture and domestication of cattle. This above approach was the only tool available to humans at that time...it was crude and time consuming. It was like shooting thousands and thousands of arrows in complete darkness and hoping that one hits the target. With gene editing and the understanding of an organism's genome we don't have to sit around and wait for a mutation to occur to get the results we want. I don't understand the irrational fear of GMO foods. We need to do loads of research in that field...it's the need of the hour. With increasing population, water shortage, desertification of farm land, and increasing global temperatures...we r going to need crops with a higher yield, drought resistance, pest resistance, etc.

I understand the fear of consuming things we don't yet know about...that's understandable...but that's the whole point of research...u find out the pros and cons of it. A similar example is of pharmaceuticals...ppl all over the world go to doctors for various ailments...seeking treatment. The doctor prescribes some medicine(or medicines) and we all take it without question. Isn't that an unnatural substance we r consuming?(by unnatural I mean that it doesn't grow naturally and humans haven't been safely consuming it for thousands of years)...yet we do it still...
...and look at where we r now. We(humans) can cure more diseases today than we ever could before...we r living longer than we ever did before. Why can't we apply the same approach to GMO foods instead of living in fear of them? If after thorough research it is found to be beneficial and not harmful than we should welcome it.

 

[ARMalik]

Sorry to say this but whenever humans have interfered in the 'Natural Order', they have fuc.ked it up. And Food is no different. Nature created food according to the requirements of Human body, perfectly balanced with sugars, minerals, etc. But when humans interfered in the food chain, they have created foods that now make the Humans sick.

And now they want to F* up the Basmati rice. Idiots.

 

[bananarepublic]

Any food where human intervention selected for certain genes in a species is "genetically modified"(hence GMO). Corn used to be very small and not so carb rich...over thousands of years it has been modified to its current form we see today. Here is a comparison...

This is no different than humans using more precise methods to edit genes directly. There are many such examples of humans modifying pretty much everything we eat. We have been doing it since the beginning of agriculture and domestication of cattle. This above approach was the only tool available to humans at that time...it was crude and time consuming. It was like shooting thousands and thousands of arrows in complete darkness and hoping that one hits the target. With gene editing and the understanding of an organism's genome we don't have to sit around and wait for a mutation to occur to get the results we want. I don't understand the irrational fear of GMO foods. We need to do loads of research in that field...it's the need of the hour. With increasing population, water shortage, desertification of farm land, and increasing global temperatures...we r going to need crops with a higher yield, drought resistance, pest resistance, etc.

I understand the fear of consuming things we don't yet know about...that's understandable...but that's the whole point of research...u find out the pros and cons of it. A similar example is of pharmaceuticals...ppl all over the world go to doctors for various ailments...seeking treatment. The doctor prescribes some medicine(or medicines) and we all take it without question. Isn't that an unnatural substance we r consuming?(by unnatural I mean that it doesn't grow naturally and humans haven't been safely consuming it for thousands of years)...yet we do it still...
...and look at where we r now. We(humans) can cure more diseases today than we ever could before...we r living longer than we ever did before. Why can't we apply the same approach to GMO foods instead of living in fear of them? If after thorough research it is found to be beneficial and not harmful than we should welcome it.

This is a good video with proper evidence about GMO simplified for people to understand

kurzgesagt makes good video