Pusa Basmati 1121

This variety of basmati rice was developed by Padma Shri awardee Dr Vijaipal Singh at Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi.

During the 1990s Indian Agricultural Research Institute was actively pursuing the Basmati varietal development programme with several hybridisations under evaluation.

[1] It was evaluated with the number IET 18004 in the National Basmati Trials under the All India Coordinated Rice Improvement Project[2] in 2002.

Improved essentially derived varieties of Pusa Basmati 1121 to address its weaknesses were developed and released by Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi recently.

All these varieties are near isogeneic lines of Pusa Basmati 1121 developed through marker assisted backcross breeding and show total agronomic similarity to Pusa Basmati 1121, coupled with its superior grain quality.

It is released and notified for the Basmati growing states of Punjab, Haryana and Delhi by the Govt.

It has shown high resistant to bacterial blight disease on cultivation, and significantly reducing the use of streptocyclin, an antibiotic formulation used to control Xanthomonas oryzae pv.

8(E) dated 24 December 2021[12] for cultivation in the Basmati growing regions of the Delhi-NCR, Haryana and Punjab.

[14] The variety shows complete tolerate to the spraying of Imazethapyr, an herbicide that kills all the common garden land weeds.

[13] Owing to this character, Pusa Basmati 1979 is ideal for DSR cultivation, wherein weed competition is a major problem.