STAFF REPORT KHI: The Sindh Seed Council (SSC) in its recent meeting has approved new high yield varieties of wheat, canola and sugarcane which could jack up the already downing per acre yield of these crops in the country.
These include a wheat variety with the yield up to 87 maunds per acre against the existing yield of 70-75 maunds.
The new variety, named Benazir, has been evolved by the Wheat Research Institute, Sakrand. Its salient features include short duration and higher yield which would substantially increase wheat output in the province.
“The new varieties have been approved after several years of trials at research farms and growers fields to tally the yield results. These were also tested on soils in Punjab and Khyber Pukhtunkhwa by the national research bodies to verify the yields claimed by the concerned research organization,” said a spokesman of the agriculture department.
The new wheat variety will be cultivated in Sindh and other places from the next Kharif season once seeds were made available.
Another variety approved by the Council is Surhan – 2012 for canola which was evolved by the Nuclear Institute of Agriculture Research Tandojam. This is the first-ever variety exclusively evolved for canola to make it a regular sowing entity.