The Indian Institute of Rice Research, an Indian Council of Agricultural Research agency, has commenced work on a Speed Breeding facility at its campus at Rajendranagar near here. The facility, which is expected to begin breeding operations in 4-5 months, will significantly reduce the time to release new seed varieties.

The facility can do 4-5 crop cycles of breeding work in a calendar year as against the long and strenuous work spanning 4-5 years (8-10 crop cycles) for stabilising the breeding lines. 

“With seed breeding, we can attain the same number of crop cycles in just 2 two years, substantially reducing breeding timelines and facilitating faster delivery of improved crop varieties to farmers. By optimising parameters such as photoperiod, light spectrum, light intensity, temperature, and carbon dioxide concentration under controlled environments, Speed Breeding substantially accelerates flowering and generation turnover,” Satendra Mangrauthia, Principal Scientist at IIRR, told businessline.

Powerful approach

The Speed Breeding technique has emerged as a powerful approach for effectively managing environmental factors and enabling rapid crop advancement in both short- and long-day crops throughout the year, irrespective of external climatic conditions. 

Owing to these advantages, it has gained global recognition as an efficient strategy for achieving multiple crop generations annually.

M. L. Jat, Secretary of Department of Agricultural Research and Education and Director General of ICAR, laid the foundation stone for the facility on Wednesday. The Rs 12-crore project includes 12 advanced Speed Breeding chambers along with supporting infrastructure.

Once completed, this will be the largest Speed Breeding facility in southern India, catering not only to the requirements of IIRR but also to researchers from several government and private organisations working on rice and other crops.

The facility is also expected to significantly strengthen genome editing research in rice by enabling rapid advancement of edited generations. In addition, the facility will greatly benefit basic research activities, particularly in rapid development of mapping populations and genetic studies.

Published on May 7, 2026