CropsFarmers across the Kashmir Valley are turning rice fields into high-density apple orchards that earn several times more, but the shift has made the region more dependent on rice from Punjab and Haryana and may reduce groundwater recharge and flood storage.
CropsIRRI and Regrow Ag have signed a five-year agreement to combine IRRI's field emissions data with Regrow's DNDC model, so that rice carbon projects and national emission inventories measure methane and nitrous oxide on the same basis.
CropsFrench startup CarbonFarm, which uses AI on satellite images and field data to measure methane and water savings on smallholder rice farms and turn them into carbon credits, has raised €7 million ($7.8 million) to expand in Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America.
CropsSyngenta will market cyclopyranil, a PPO-inhibiting rice herbicide developed by Japan's Kyoyu Agri, in selected Asian markets, giving growers a new tool against grass and broadleaf weeds resistant to ACCase and ALS herbicides.
CropsAlbaugh India has launched TANDEM, a carbendazim and tebuconazole suspension concentrate registered for paddy, recommended as a foliar spray at 320 mL in 200 litres of water per acre.
Rain, wind and storms during the kharif harvest have flattened standing paddy and drenched grain stored in the open in north India; IMD forecasts more rain and strong winds on 12-13 October.
AgrotechA rice and mung bean grower in Thailand's Nakhon Sawan province trialled a New Holland tractor and mulcher in the 2026 harvest to chop rice straw and keep it in the field, an alternative to the open burning that sends about 4.8 million tons of straw up in smoke in central Thailand each year.
CropsThe CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology held its first scientist-farmer meet at its Bommaipalli campus, handing out climate-resilient, high-yielding rice developed with ICAR-IIRR.
CropsAt a field day at ICAR-RCER's Sabajpura farm near Patna, Bihar's agriculture principal secretary Narmadeshwar Lal promised state support to spread raised-and-sunken beds, direct-seeded rice, micro-irrigation and integrated crop-fish systems.
CropsSatellite monitoring by IARI's CREAMS counted 287 paddy residue fires in seven states from 15 September to 6 October; Madhya Pradesh had 118 and Punjab 88, its lowest for the period in seven years.
CropsResearchers mapped 210 rare haplotypes linked to rice yield, grain quality and stress tolerance, and one of them, DEP1-H2, raised yields by up to 9.87% when bred into the Indian variety Swarna.
CropsDaytime temperatures above 100F and warm nights dried rice too fast in the field, cracking kernels and cutting milling yields; researchers suggest spreading planting into mid-April.
CropsAfter a year of floods, a season of suitable temperatures and a 35% July rain surplus has given paddy growers in south Kashmir a crop many say they have not seen in 15 years, though rice land in the Valley keeps shrinking.
