TKM 15 -A High Yielding, Short Duration Rice Variety Suitable for Direct Sown Water Limited Areas of Tamil Nadu, India

Drought is one of the major abiotic stresses that affect rice production in rainfed areas of Tamil Nadu. Tamil Nadu experienced recurrent droughts during the years 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2018 and rice production is worst affected. Rice Research Station, Tirur established in 1942 in Tiruvallur District of Tamil Nadu (TNAU) to evolve varieties suitable for semidry areas, took up research programme to develop a short duration, high yielding drought tolerant rice variety suitable for rainfed and semidry cultivation and came up with the drought tolerant, short duration rice variety TKM 15 during 2022 for direct sown rainfed and semidry areas of Tamil Nadu viz., Kancheepuram, Chengalpattu, Tiruvallur, Pudukottai, Ramanathapuram, Virudhunagar, Sivagangai and Thoothukudi districts. TKM 15 matures in 118 days and has the ability to withstand early-stage water stress, good germination percentage under direct sowing, early vigour and high drought recovery. This variety has manifested the grain yield of 3995 kg/ha and 4217 kg/ha under rainfed and semidry conditions respectively which was 10.42% and 17.89% increase over the check variety Anna (R) 4 in rainfed and semidry conditions. TKM 15 has erect, high tillering and non-lodging plant habit, with dense droopy compact panicle (25 cm) having more number of grains per panicle (253 no.). It is moderately resistant to major diseases such as blast, sheath rot, sheath blight, brown spot and RTD and field tolerant to major pests like leaf folder, stem borer and gall midge which are its added advantage. It has good hulling (80%) percentage, milling (68%) percentage and Head Rice Recovery (62.9 %). Rice is white, medium slender with 1000 grain weight of 15.0 g with non-sticky property and has good taste upon cooking. It has higher proline content (2.15 mg/g), Chlorophyll Stability Index (80.23 %) and total chlorophyll content (1.51 mg/g) under water stress. The feedback from the farmers was that, TKM 15 tolerates water stress and recovers quickly with the receipt of rainfall, has more tillers, densely packed panicle with medium slender grains, gives higher yield under rainfed and semidry environments and also free from pests and diseases under field condition.