Introduction of New High Yielding Rice Cultivar with Good Grain Quality, Kadous

Rice is the principal agricaltural crop in most Asian contries,often accounting for more than half of total cropped area. In recent years,rice production in Iran has been increased from 2.4 million ton in 2000 to 3.1 million ton in 2003. This increase in rice production is highly attributed to the wide-scale adoption of improved rice cultivars. Kadous (IR64669-152-2-3) is a new high yielding rice cultivar with good grain quality that was selected during 1994-2000 after receiving 185 germplasm accessions from IRRI. It was evaluated in observational nurseries and preliminary yield trials in1994-1995.In these experiments,Kadous yielded 5.8 tha-1, higher than the yields of improved check cultivars Khazar (5.0 tha-1) and Bejar (5.2 tha-1). It was evaluated in regional yield trials at six sites in Guilan and Mazandaran provinces in 1996 and 1997, and performed consequently, yielding an average of 5.6 tha-1, which was 0.7 and 2-2.5 tha-1 more than Khazar and local cultivars, respectivly. The Eberhart and Russell method was adopted to verify the yield stability of Kadous.The agronomic package involved a hill spacing of 25 cm x 25 cm and 90 kg Nha-1. Its maturity duration (125 days) was 1 and 2 weeks earlier than Khazar and Neamat cultivars, respectivly. It is an aromatic,semidwarf (110 cm), lodging and blast- resistant, medium-duration cultivar (125 days), with good grain quality characteristics. Its milling recovery rate is 67% with 52% head rice. In addition, the intermediate amylose content,gelatinization temperature and gel consistency of Kadous indicates a good cooking quality that preferred by Iranian consumers. Kadous was released by the Ministry of Jihad-e-Agriculture and the Agicultural Research and Education Organization in 2004.