India Develops Improved Basmati Variety

The Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) has developed an improved variety of its Pusa Basmati-1 rice called Pusa-1460 which is resistant to bacterial leaf blight.

According to IARI director, S A Patil, the Pusa Basmati-1 developed by IARI was not resistant to bacterial leaf blight and hence the institute developed Pusa-1460 which has the same agronomic features of Pusa Basmati-1 in addition to being resistant to bacterial leaf blight.