Evaluation of rice (Oryza sativa L.) mutant derivatives for salt tolerance in saline vertisols of Tungabhadra command

For larger proportion of the human population in the world, rice is the most staple food. With ever growing world population, the food production has to be increased substantially and paddy production has to go up from the present 585 million tones to 810 million tonnes by the year 2025 [1]. Similarly, the Indian rice production has to be increased from 90 to 140 million tonnes [2]. This could be achieved either through increased productivity or increased crop area. Good rice lands in peri-urban areas are fast declining due to rapid urbanization and industrialization. The increase in area to meet the demand of rice will have to come from stress inducing marginal lands and problem soils like saline, sodic, saline-sodic, acidic soils etc. Salinity has become a problem in most of the irrigated commands due to unscientific water management, poor drainage practices, violation of cropping pattern etc in the command. The adoption of crops/varieties tolerant to saline conditions is likely to augment the productivity of crop and help the farmers to raise crops in saline soils as reclamation of the saline soil is cost prohibitive.