Kashmir scientists develop wheat varieties to solve crop cycle issue Premium

Scientists in Kashmir develop early-maturing wheat varieties to enhance crop cycles and boost food production for local farmers.

Scientists at the Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, Kashmir (SKUAST-K) have developed two new wheat varieties that could help farmers harvest on time and thus boost the total food grain production of the Union Territory.

To introduce a successful rice-wheat cropping system in Kashmir has been a more than decade old research target. The idea was conceived in the early 2000s when the evaluation of plant varieties began under the All India Coordinated project on Wheat & Barley, funded by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research.

 “One of the major challenges with earlier wheat varieties was that most of the planting material came from sub-tropical regions such as Haryana and Delhi,” Asif Bashir Shikari, professor of genetics and plant breeding at SKUAST-K, said. “In Kashmir’s climatic conditions, these varieties tended to mature late, often around June or July.”

Wheat, a rabi crop, is sown in October and typically harvested in early summer. In Kashmir, however, where rice is the dominant kharif crop, the timing is critical. Farmers need to vacate their fields by May-June to transplant paddy. When wheat stays in the field until June, the rice-wheat rotation, a mainstay of food security and livelihoods, breaks down.

“Although those varieties were high-yielding, they affected the cropping cycle,” Dr. Shikari explained. “That is why plant breeders in Kashmir prioritised developing early-maturing wheat varieties that could be harvested by end May.”

After nearly a decade of breeding and testing, researchers at SKUAST-K developed two new wheat varieties, called Shalimar Wheat-4 (SW-4), which matures by the last week of May, and Shalimar Wheat-3 (SW-3), which matures in the first week of June. Both are designed to fit the rice-wheat rotation.