Seeds: New Wheat Yields Better, Banned Paddy Still Available

This harvest season, rain continues to lash Indian Panjab and neighboring states and uncovered grain already in procurement centers is also not safe from vagaries of nature. (SDW Vol. 2 Issue 17, Story 4), Yet, there is some good news. A new wheat variety PBW 826 has delivered better yield. Panjab agriculture director Jaswant Singh said, ‘All districts have reported a per acre yield of nearly 22 quintals during the crop-cut experiments (a method of establishing crop yield). Compared to last year, there has been an average increase of two quintals per acre. In some places, the rise is even more than two quintals.’ PBW 826 was developed and introduced by Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) in 2022 after four years of clinical and field trials. It has shown 31% more yield than the other commonly used variety HD 3086, and 17% more than HD 2967 variety. On the paddy front, in October 2023 CM Bhagwant Mann had banned the PUSA 44 variety in the state. However, the seeds of this water-guzzling variety of paddy which takes 140+ days to grow and produces more stubble continue to be easily available to farmers for sowing. Some of the commission agents, who own rice shellers too, are encouraging farmers to buy and sow this variety. Their reasons are the grain does not get discolored and the quantity of broken grains in the shelling is much less. On 26 Apr CM Mann issued another video message in which he said Panjab had saved $57M by moving to new seeds which take 90 days to grow, producing less stubble. He encouraged farmers to shift.