Bhubaneswar: At a time when pests have shattered the hopes of a good harvest of farmers in several parts of Odisha, Tentuapada village in Digapahandi block of Ganjam district has been able to shield itself from the menace. The farmers here opted for ‘Hasant’ variant of paddy that proved pest resistant to a large extent besides being high yielding.
Subrat Kumar Adhikari, a farmer of the village had earlier procured nearly a kg seeds of Hasant variety developed by the scientists of Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT) last year and reaped 32 quintals paddy from an acre of land.
Inspired by Adhikari, other farmers in the village had also used the variety in nearly 14 acres of land in the area without pest infestation.
“It is a high yielding variety and the crops are safe even as the pests have damaged crops in other parts of the district,” said Adhikari.
Encouraged by the results, a special team from OUAT and the agriculture department has decided to conduct a detailed assessment of the paddy variant that has remained untouched by the pest attack.
As per official sources, the experts team would conduct further tests after collecting seeds from the harvested crops from the farmers who used the particular variant of paddy this year.
“The yield period of the variety is 145 days. We will test the variant in other parts of the state soon,” said OUAT VC, Surendranath Pasupalak.