BRRI gets three new rice varieties: salt-tolerant, high-yield Boro and blast-resistant

The National Seed Board (NSB) of Bangladesh approved three more rice varieties developed by the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) at its meeting on Wednesday, 18 June 2025. One is a salt-tolerant Aman rice (BRRI dhan112), one a high-yielding Boro rice (BRRI dhan113) and one a blast-resistant Boro rice (BRRI dhan114). The meeting was chaired by Agriculture Secretary Dr Mohammad Emdad Ullah Mian and attended by BRRI Director General Dr Mohammad Khalequzzaman and senior officials of the ministries and departments concerned.

With the three, BRRI had developed 121 rice varieties, eight of them hybrids. Founded on 1 October 1970, the institute has its headquarters at Joydebpur in Gazipur and 17 regional stations across the country's agro-ecological zones. Khondoker Md Iftekharuddaula, BRRI chief scientific officer and head of its plant breeding division, told Prothom Alo that although the new varieties differ in their traits, all of them will give higher yields, and farmers growing them can profit.

BRRI dhan112 is a salt-tolerant, medium-duration transplanted Aman variety. Its flag leaf, the topmost leaf of the plant, is more erect than that of the widely grown BRRI dhan73. Depending on salinity, it yields 4.14 to 6.12 tonnes per hectare, one to one and a half tonnes more than its parent BRRI dhan73. It matures in 120 to 125 days and grows 103 to 105 cm tall, with sturdy stems that resist lodging.

Each panicle carries about 210 filled grains, 80 to 90 more than BRRI dhan73, which BRRI attributes to the Gn1a gene. A 2005 study in Science by researchers at Nagoya University in Japan showed that Gn1a codes for cytokinin oxidase, an enzyme that breaks down the plant hormone cytokinin; lower expression of the gene increases the number of grains.

The variety's main feature is that its seedlings tolerate salinity of 12 dS/m for up to three weeks, and at every salt-sensitive stage from vegetative growth to reproduction it still yields at 8 dS/m. The rice is medium slender and white and cooks fluffy, and the grain does not shatter easily. Because it matures early, coastal farmers can follow it with sunflower or salt-tolerant mustard on medium-high to high land.

BRRI dhan113 was released as an alternative to BRRI dhan29, a popular Boro variety. It is a high-yielding, medium-slender variety whose flag leaf is erect, broad and long and stays green at maturity. Plants are 102 to 105 cm tall and sturdy enough not to lodge easily, and it matures in 143 days on average.

A thousand filled grains weigh 19.4 grams on average. The white, medium-slender rice looks much like Nazirshail, with 28 per cent amylose and 8.4 per cent protein, and cooks fluffy. In yield trials it outyielded BRRI dhan88 by 11.5 per cent, averaging 8.15 tonnes per hectare and reaching up to 10.1 tonnes under good management.

BRRI dhan114 is a long-duration Boro variety whose distinguishing trait is resistance to blast. The disease is caused by the fungus Magnaporthe oryzae, which produces lesions on the leaves, nodes, panicle neck and other above-ground parts; when the panicle neck is infected, the grain fails to fill. Blast is estimated to destroy enough rice each year to feed more than 60 million people.

The variety has an erect, broad, long flag leaf, dark green leaves and sturdy stems that do not lodge. It yields 7.76 tonnes per hectare on average and up to 10.23 tonnes with good care. The grain is medium bold and golden. Its 149-day life cycle matches that of the popular Boro variety BRRI dhan89. A thousand filled grains weigh 17.4 grams on average, with 27 per cent amylose and 7.7 per cent protein, and the rice cooks fluffy.

It carries the dominant blast-resistance gene Pi9 and showed a high level of resistance (score 0) under artificial inoculation. Researchers at Ohio State University, who cloned Pi9 and described it in the journal Genetics in 2006, called it a broad-spectrum blast resistance gene.

Photo: Sajib5467 / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

Sources: Jagonews24, Prothom Alo, Science (Ashikari et al., 2005), Genetics (Qu et al., 2006), Wikipedia