Rice (Oryza sativa L.) belongs to the family poaceae (Gramineae) growing worldwide. Rice is one the three major staple foods consumed by half of the total population of the World annually. The genus Oryza was named by Linnaeus in 1753, and the haploid chromosome number of rice was determined by Kuwada in 1910 (Vanghan 2003). The domestication of wild rice probably started about 9000 years ago. The earliest and most convincing archaeological evidence for domestication of rice in Southeast Asia was discovered by Welhelm G. Solheim II in 1966 (Solheim, 1972). Ancient India is undoubtedly one of the oldest regions where cultivation of O. sativa began. The oldest grain samples excavated at Mohenjodaro (now in Pakistan) date back to about 2500 B.C., (Andrus and Mohammed, 1958). The oldest carbonized grains found in India date back to about 6750 B.C. (Sharma and Manda, 1980). Presently, the Asian cultivated common rice, O. sativa, is grown all over the world.
Rice is the staple food grain of West Bengal. West Bengal state of India is known as bowl of rice because it constitutes major food item and is being cultivated in major portion of agricultural fields. West Bengal in India is richest reservoir of rice biodiversity; many types of rice cultivars like wild races, landraces and many other varieties were widely available in this state from century past to the present date and ecotypes of rice spontaneously evolved in the state are so diverse and different that scientists at one time coined them as Oryza sativa var. benghalensis (Chatterjee et al, 2008). Rice being cultivated in three major rice growing session in West Bengal, i.e. Aus, Amon and Boro cultivated in Pre-kharif, Kharif and summer session respectively. Aus varieties corresponds to very early maturing and drought tolerant upland rice grown in West Bengal during the so called Aus season (March-June), Amon varieties (June-December) grown in Kharif session and Boro varieties (November-April) are mainly summer rice. Before the Green Revolution started, the farmers used to exchange seeds among themselves and thus conserved about thousands of region specific rice varieties. According to an estimate West Bengal possess vast genetic diversity of rice in recent past. In the year 1975 more than 5556 rice varieties were recorded in West Bengal (Deb, 2005). The unfortunate aspect is that after the green revolution out of over five thousand landraces of rice more than 90% of the total number of traditional varieties have disappeared from the rice fields of Bengal and out of the existing landraces none is being cultivated in organized way. More than 90% of cultivation of the rice growing parts of the West Bengal is done using high yielding varieties only (Sinha & Mishra,2013).
In spite of continuous erosion of rice genetic diversity, West Bengal still possess numbers of rice landraces, wild rice varieties in various agro climatic region in in-situ and ex-situ condition. Marginal and traditional farmers are the main keepers of these agrobiodiversity wealth and some varieties being conserved by various agricultural research institute, through individual efforts etc. Marginal farmers cultivating and conserving numbers of traditional rice varieties of West Bengal according to their requirements and agro climatic conditions. Traditional rice may classified to Aromatic, High yielding, Premier variety and resistant to various stress conditions (Sinha,2018). Aromatic varieties found in different districts of West Bengal are- Badshabhog, Gobindovog, Khas, Chamarmani, Gopalbhog, Dudheswar, Hamai, Tulsibas, Radhuni pagal, Kaminibhog, Krisnabhog, Kalonunia, Kalojeera, Tulsibhog, Tulsimukul, Danarguri, China kamini, Padmakeshari, Kalamoti, Tulasibasa, Pimpudibasa, Kalajiri, Bahadur, Malbhog, Suwagmoni, Kushal, Joha etc. Kalo jira retains aroma after long preservation (Sinha & Mishra,2015) (Das et al, 2012). Tulaipanji, Baskati, Sitasal, Basmati etc. are premier variety and are excellent table rice varieties cultivated in various districts of West Bengal (Sen et al, 2005). Other than aromatic, fine grained rice and rice related food delicacy- Chire, muri, murki, moya, khoi, sweets etc. are prepared from other fine rice varieties or with different textures; such as- Balam, Banspati, Bhramarmani, Dandkhani, Sali, Kanakchur, Bhogdhan, Rupsal, Phakirmoni, Mohonbhog, Murkimala, Lalsaru, Lakhsman sal, Dudhkalma, Chandrakanata etc (Semwal, 2014; Deb, 2005). Some High yielding local varieties are, Kalma, Nayanmani I, Bahurupi, Sonagori, Keralasundari, Patnai-23, Barani etc, being cultivated by the marginal farmers for their daily consumption (Sinha & Mishra, 2015). Stress resistant Folk varieties like resistant of flood, drought, salt and also frequently cultivated by the farmers in the various stress prone region of West Bengal. Varieties cultivated in flooded area are Nalivasa, Bhasa Kalmi, Bhasa manik, Birpana, Barshalakshmi, Jalkamini, Jaldubi- these varieties survives by elongation of stem with water level, some even withstand in submerged condition for long time and able to cope with flood related crop damage and food scarcity (Sarkar et al, 1996,2006). Some drought tolerant varieties in Bengal are Bootmuri ,Bombai nogi, Noichi, Kalo boro, Kelas, Jhulur, Sitapi etc (Sinha, 2019). Salinity resistant varieties like, Lal patni, Lal getu, Matla, Nona bokhra, Talmugur. Nonabokra etc. being cultivated in various coastal region of West Bengal subjected to salt stress due to its ability to tolerate salinity (Karmakar et al, 2012),( Bhambure, 2016) (Samal,2016). In the laterite zones of Bankura, Birbhum and Purulia, drought resistant ones like Bhutmuri and Kelash variants are gaining a foothold among the farming community (Sinha & Mishra,2012, 2015).
Grain morphology of some rice landraces of West Bengal [1. Jhuloor, 2.Raj, 3. Hansguji, 4.Dhusri, 5. Ghora-sal, 6. Jhinga-Sal, 7. Lalbadsabhog, 8. Bansh-Pata, 9. Tulsi-Mukul, 10. Jamai-Sal, 11. Sada-Dhula 12. Geti-Sal, 13. Akshyarani, 14. Saru-Patnai, 15. Nata, 16. Thupi-Sal, 17.Lathi-Sal
Reference
Vanghan, D.A., Morishima, H. and Kadowaki, K., 2003. Diversity in the Oryza genus. Current Opinion in Pl. Biol., 6:139-146.
Solheim, W.G. II, 1972. An earlier agricultural revolution. Scient Am., 266(4):34-41.
Andrus, J.R., Mohammed, A.F., 1958. The economy of Pakistan. Oxford University press, Oxford.
Sharma, G.R., Manda, D., 1978. Excavations at Mahagara. Aneolithic settlement in Belan Valley. Archeology of the Vindhyas.
Chatterjee, S.D., Adhikari, B., Ghosh, A., Ahmed, J., Neogi, S.B., and Pandey, N., 2008. The rice bio-diversity in West Bengal. Department of Agriculture, Govt. of West Bengal, pp. 50.
Deb, D., 2005. Seeds of Tradition, Seeds of Future: Folk Rice Varieties from East India. Research Foundation for Science, Technology & Ecology. New Delhi, pp. 84-94.
Sinha, A.K., Mishra, P.K., 2013. Morphology based multivariate analysis of phenotypic diversity of landraces of rice (Oryza sativa L.) of Bankura district of West Bengal. Journal of Crop and Weed, 9(2):115-121.
Sinha, A.K, 2018. Traditional rice varieties of West Bengal-protection conservation and restoration for sustainable agriculture. International Journal of Current Research in Life Sciences.7:(2):1059-1063.
Sinha AK, Mallick GK and Mishra PK., 2015. Diversity of grain morphology on traditional rice varieties (Oryza sativa L.) of Lateritic Region of West Bengal. World Journal of Agricultural Science 11(1):48-54 DOI: 10.5829/idosi.wjas.2015.11.1.1843.
Das BD, Sengupta S, Ghosh M, Ghose TK., 2012. Assessment of diversity amongst a set of aromatic rice genotypes from India. International Journal of Biodiversity and Conservation 4(5): 206-218.
Sen D, Bhatt A, Kar CS., 2005. Tulaipanji: an indigenous scented rice genotype of West Bengal. Asian Agri-History 9(2): 153-156.
Semwal DP, Pandey A, Bhandari DC, Dhariwal OP and Sharma SK., 2014. Variability study in seed morphology and uses of indigenous rice landraces (Oryza sativa L.) collected from West Bengal, India. Australian Journal of crop Science 8(3):460-467.
Sinha AK and Mishra PK., 2015. Are the traditional rice varieties low yielding? A case study on traditional rice varieties of Lateritic Region of West Bengal. International Journal of Advance Research 2(6):292-296.
Sarkar RK, De RN, Reddy JN and Ramakrishnayya G., 1996. Studies on the submergence tolerance mechanism in relation to carbohydrate, chlorophyll and specific leaf weight in rice (Oryza sativa L.), Journal of Plant Physiology 149: 623–625.
Sarkar RK, Reddy JN, Sharma SG and Ismail AM., 2006. Physiological basis of submergence tolerance in rice and implications for crop improvement, Current Science 91 (7): 899–906.
Sinha, AK., 2019. Assessment of Adaptability of Some Rice Landraces (Oryza sativa L.) of West Bengal for Drought Tolerance. International Journal of Science and Research Methodology. 12(2):9-18.
Karmakar J, Roychowdhury R, Kar RK, Deb Debal, Dey N., 2012. Profiling of selected indigenous rice (Oryza sativa L.) landraces of Rarh, Bengal in relation to osmotic stress tolerance. Physiology and Molecular Biology of Plants 18(2): 125-132.
Bhambure AB and Kerkar S., 2016. Traditionally cultivated rice varieties in coastal saline soils of India. Vasantrao Dempo Education and Research Journal of Arts, Science and Humanities 2(1):65-75
Samal R, Roy PS, Dash AK, Rao GJN, Bharathkumar S, Subudhi HN and Reddy JN., 2016. Genetic diversity in the rice land races (Oryza sativa L) of coastal Sundarbans (India) and their adaptation to the local saline condition investigated both at molecular and physiological level. Acta Physiologiae Plantarum 38:56 [DOI 10.1007/s11738-015-2046-x]
Mishra PK and Sinha AK., 2012. Rice Diversity in Bankura District of West Bengal (India). Bioscience Discovery 3(3):284-287
Read More
