Rice is main staple food of Indians. Rice is grown over an area of 44 m ha in the country and Andhra Pradesh state is the Rice bowl of India with 2.5 M ha. A number of public bred notified varieties are under cultivation. However, the consumer preference in recent years have shifted towards medium slender grain fine rice like BPT 5204 (Samba Masuri). However, this variety suffers from BPH, BLB, Blast and also due to lack of dormancy the grains germinates on the standing crop, if inclement weather persists at the time of maturity.

But by virtue of its quality rice, BPT 5204 is still cultivated over 4.0 m ha every year in the country and hence, there is a great demand for its seed. NRI Agritech is producing high quality seed under the guidance of Dr. A. Satyanarayana through maintenance breeding and our company earned reputation for quality BPT 5204 seed and the farmers are asking for NRI BPT 5204 seed.

More over due to climate change and vagaries in monsoons, in recent years the canal water is released late and hence the planting of rice crop is getting delayed. The rice crop is suffering from diseases like Blast due to late planting. In addition the subsequent crop grown after rice under rice fallows is also effected adversely due to delayed sowings after the rice crop is harvested.

Therefore, Rice improvement programmes were initiated by NRI Agritech to develop medium (135 days) duration varieties to replace of mid late (150 days) varieties, suitable for late planting as well as to fit in double crop sequence (Rice-Blackgram, Greengram etc..) coupled with resistance to BPH, BLB, Blast with moderate levels of dormancy and rice quality similar to BPT 5204 or even superior to fit into various niches.

The efforts of NRI Agritech R&D, are successful in developing the following fine grain high yielding, disease resistant, medium duration varieties to replace BPT 5204 in various farming situations.

1.Rice	NRI P 004	Delta
Semi dwarf Moderate tillering Medium slender grain L / B ratio 2.83 Test weight 15.0 g Panicle well exerted Rice grain VOC Maturity 135 days (Kharif), 130 days (Rabi) Moderately resistant to BLB and blast diseases

2.Rice	NRI P 005	NRI Mahsuri
Semi dwarf Heavy tillering Medium slender grain L / B ratio 2.83 Test weight 15.0 g Panicle well exerted Rice grain VOC Maturity 145 days (Kharif)

3.Rice	NRI P 006	NRI Beeja
Semi dwarf 125 cm Moderate tillering Super fine, Medium slender Grain L / B ratio 3.22 Test weight 13.91 g Panicle well exerted Rice grain VOC Maturity 115-120 days (Early) Relatively free from biotic stresses under field condition Non lodging Yields recorded 8-10 t/ ha

4.Rice	NRI P 007	Bheem
Semi dwarf 130 cm Heavy tillering Fine rice Medium slender grain L / B ratio 3.004 Test weight 16.98 g Panicle well exerted Rice grain VOC Maturity 150-155 days (Kharif) Non lodging High yielder 8.0 t/ ha Suitable for single cropped paddy area in the tail ends of Krishna delta

5.Rice	NRI P 003	Ravi
Semi dwarf Moderate tillering Bigger Panicle Higher number of Spikelets per Panicle 600-700 Medium slender grain L / B ratio 3.25 Test weight 14. g Panicle well exerted Rice grain VOC Maturity 135 days(Kharif),130 days(Rabi) Moderately resistant to BLB and blast diseases