Daily Times

Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC) Chairman Dr Ghulam Muhammad Ali here Saturday said that the council had started work on new breeding technologies including speed cloning, speed breeding, genomic selection and genomic editing for enhancement of crop production for achieving food safety and security in the country.

The PARC in collaboration with China have developed Green Super Rice (GSR), which would be a harbinger of economic prosperity as it Indicating the yield potential 80 to 120 mound per acre and grain length of 8.6mm, said Chairman PARC Dr Ghulam Muhammad Ali. While talking to APP here on Saturday, he said that using the latest technique of genome-based breeding, NIGAB scientists, in collaboration with China, have developed these GSR lines that would help to enhance per-acre output as well as exports.

Dr Ali said that banana varieties of PARC like NIGAB-I & NIGAB-2 with higher productivity and shelf life were also developed, adding that these verities would help in enhancing the income of local farmers, adding that National Institute for Genomics and Advanced Biotechnology (NIGAB) of PARC has also started producing virus-free potato tubers locally that would help in saving foreign exchange of the country, besides increasing the output.

Due to disease attack on local potato varieties, country has to import seed potato of 8th generation from Holland, which costs millions of dollars, he said adding that the council was also actively involved in developing vaccine for disease prevention and epidemic control and also in selecting of superior breeds of animals using Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) data for improved milk and meat productivity.