Development of climate-adaptable/resilient crop varieties through induced mutation.

Abstract For crop production to cope with problems driven by climate change, such as salinity, drought and extreme temperatures, the Bangladesh Institute of Nuclear Agriculture (BINA) released a late Boro rice variety, 'Binadhan-14' in 2013 which is tolerant to high temperature, has short duration (105-115 days) and gives average yield of 6.9 t/ha. This variety was developed by irradiating the seeds of 'Ashfal', a local salt-tolerant landrace of rice, with 200 Gy of carbon-ion beams. The late-transplanting potential of this variety also helps in avoiding seedling injury due to severe cold. Another variety, 'Binadhan-19', was developed by irradiating the seeds of 'NERICA-10' rice with 40 Gy of carbon-ion beams. This was released by the National Seed Board of Bangladesh (NSB) in 2017 as a drought-tolerant, short-duration (95-105 days) and high-yielding (average 4.0 t/ha) variety for the Aus growing season. BINA developed a salt-tolerant wheat variety, 'Binagom-1', by selecting from a segregating population, obtained from NIAB, Pakistan. This variety was released in 2016; it can tolerate salinity (up to 12 dS/m) and produces an average yield of 2.8 t/ha. Apart from these, BINA developed four salt-tolerant groundnut varieties ('Binachinabadam-5', 'Binachinabadam-6', 'Binachinabadam-7' and 'Binachinabadam-9') by irradiation with gamma-rays. All these four varieties can tolerate salinity (up to 8 dS/m) from flowering to maturity and produce pods at 1.8-3.4 t/ha under saline soil conditions. These climate-resilient varieties are playing a significant role in food security and enhancing the nutritional status of the people of Bangladesh.