The CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) today said it has developed an improved variant of a popular rice variety in collaboration with the ICAR-Indian Institute of Rice Research (IIRR).
The variety, Improved Samba Mashuri (ISM), is cultivated in an area of 1,30,000 hectares across the country, mainly in the states like Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh, the city- based CCMB said in a release.
"The CSIR-CCMB, a basic life science research institute and a constituent laboratory of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), and ICAR-Indian Institute of Rice Research (ICAR-IIRR) have developed an Improved Samba Mashuri (ISM)," the release said.
"Recently, in a study carried out by the National Institute of Nutrition (a constituent institution of the Indian Council of Medical Research), it has been established that ISM has another unique feature of low glycemic index (ie a value of 50.99), which is amongst the lowest value for several rice varieties tested," it said.
Foods with Glycemic Index (GI) value below 55 are considered suitable for consumption by patients suffering from diabetes as consumption of foods with low GI results in slow release of glucose into the bloodstream, the release said.
ISM, in addition to possessing desirable attributes like high yield, fine-grain type, bacterial blight resistance and premium market price, also has a unique advantage of low GI, thus enhancing its market potential and profit earned by the farmers, it said.
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