The ICAR-National Rice Research Institute (NRRI), Cuttack, organised an event, ‘Rice Walk: Walk with Rice, Know Your Rice’, on Wednesday. Over 2,000 students and teachers from over 30 schools from Cuttack and Bhubaneswar, farmers, scientists from ICAR and OUAT and officials, besides general public, joined the event.
The participants visited the institute’s research farm of about 200 acres with full grown crops of newly developed high yielding rice varieties. They were exposed to the development of rice varieties and other agro-technologies related to rice production, plant protection, bio-fortification (high protein rice), climate smart rice with tolerance to both drought and submergence, hybrid rice, rice-fish integrated farming system models, resource conservation techniques, mechanization, seed processing, enhancing rice quality, crop physiology and micro-environment. The participants also visited the institute’s rice museum, rice gene bank with collection of over 35,000 rice germplasms and various laboratories of the institute. Director of the institute Dr Himanshu Pathak inaugurated the Walk. Principal Scientist Dr SK Mishra and Senior Scientist Dr Rahul Tripathi of NRRI, Cuttack coordinated.
