Scuba rice goes against the flow of woes in flood prone eastern India
Channel: International Rice Research Institute
Date: 2018-01-22

In 2010, IRRI, through its partner agencies, started disseminating Swarna-Sub1 seed, a flood-tolerant version of the popular variety Swarna, to farmers in the region. It is the first high-yielding Scuba rice in India. Field trials conducted in Odisha showed that yields of Swarna-Sub1 could be 45% higher than those of Swarna even when it was submerged for up to two weeks. Indian farmers have been cultivating Swarna-Sub1 at unprecedented rates. By 2013, more than 1.7 million hectares of flood-prone land in India were planted with the variety.