PAU experts promote early-maturing paddy

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, May 2

Taking a serious note of the aggravating water crunch in Punjab, Dr Satbir Singh Gosal, vice-chancellor, PAU, urged field-level functionaries to put in their best efforts to discourage the cultivation of water-gulping Pusa 44 and encourage the sowing of PAU-developed, less-water requiring, short duration and early-maturing ‘PR’ varieties in the current Kharif season.

While chairing the monthly meeting of the Research and Extension Review Committee today, Dr Gosal directed the scientists to strictly monitor paddy cultivation in Punjab and leave no effort to enhance area under ‘PR’ varieties, which have evoked unprecedented response from the farmers of Punjab and neighbouring states.

“As per the recent reports, maximising efforts to minimise the cultivation of Pusa 44 has brought down electricity consumption, saving power worth Rs 477 crore and underground water by nearly 5 billion cusecs in 2023,” he said, adding that it is a positive sign.

The area under short to medium duration varieties comprising PR 121, PR 126, PR 128 and PR 131 has scaled up to 70 per cent during the last year, he added. Labelling high-yielding PR 126 and PR 131 as miracle varieties, Dr Gosal called upon extension scientists to make sure farmers say no to long duration Pusa 44, Peeli Pusa and PR 118 varieties which have proved to be disastrous for Punjab in terms of groundwater depletion.

Dr AS Dhatt, Director of Research, asked the scientists to promote water and labour saving ‘Direct Seeded Rice’ technology also at farmers’ fields. Stating that it will prove to be a boon for the peasantry, he said that promotion of varieties (PR) and technology (DSR) must go hand in hand to enable the farmers reap the windfalls.

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