Performance of Stress Tolerant Rice Variety Swarna Shreya Under Rainfed Drought-Prone Areas of South Eastern Ghat Zone of Odisha

Stress like drought is an important production constraint that drastically reduces rice yield. The present study was conducted during kharif season of 2019 through the front line demonstrations in Malkangiri district of South Eastern Ghat Zone of Odisha to evaluate the performance of drought tolerant rice variety Swarna Shreya with recommended package (demonstrated technology) of practices. Rice variety Sahabhagi dhan was considered as local check (farmers practice). Performance of Swarna Shreya was better in terms of plant height (110.4 cm), number of tillers hill-1 (17.8), panicle length (23.5 cm), number of grains panicle-1 (162), test weight (23.4 g) with yield of 42.4 q ha-1. In terms of yield, it was 15.2% more with Swarna Shreya as compared to local check Sahabhagi dhan. Highest economic return with more B: C ratio (1.8) was also recorded with Swarna shreya. So, drought tolerant rice variety Sahabhagi dhan can be replaced with Swarna Shreya for more yield and higher economic return in rainfed upland ecosystem of South Eastern Ghat Zone of Odisha.