Genetic Improvement of Rice for Salt Tolerance in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India

Paddy is the mainstay food crop in Andaman and Nicobar Islands covering about 17% of the total cultivable land. The islands are characterized by high rainfall (3000 mm/year) coupled with waterlogging and coastal salinity. To address the island-specific variety development, ICAR-Central Island Agricultural Research Institute (CIARI), Port Blair, has developed efficient phenotyping or screening facilities/infrastructures such as micro-plots, glasshouses and/ or lab facilities for breeding for different biotic and abiotic stress tolerance. Consequent to the research work carried out under seven rice projects across many years, a total of nine improved rice varieties have been developed and recommended for cultivation for normal and saline soils to alleviate the problem of low productivity in the islands. These varieties are derived from exotic breeding lines, somaclonal variation induced in traditional saline-tolerant paddy Pokkali, and purification of highly popular rice landrace C14–8. In addition, few salt-tolerant and high-yielding varieties developed in Indian mainland research organizations have also been found superior in the islands. About 150.7 quintal of truthfully labeled (TFL) seeds of salt-tolerant varieties were produced and disseminated to island farmers during 2011–2018 covering about 498 ha of area. Further, MAGIC (multi-parent advance generation inter-cross) populations involving eight diverse parents having economic traits and adapted to the islands’ conditions have been developed by our group for creating high genetic variability in rice, thus leading to high-yielding and climate-resilient varieties for islands.