Abstract
For crop production to cope with problems driven by climate change, such as salinity, drought and extreme temperatures, the Bangladesh Institute of Nuclear Agriculture (BINA) released a late Boro rice variety, 'Binadhan-14' in 2013 which is tolerant to high temperature, has short duration (105-115 days) and gives average yield of 6.9 t/ha. This variety was developed by irradiating the seeds of 'Ashfal', a local salt-tolerant landrace of rice, with 200 Gy of carbon-ion beams. The late-transplanting potential of this variety also helps in avoiding seedling injury due to severe cold. Another variety, 'Binadhan-19', was developed by irradiating the seeds of 'NERICA-10' rice with 40 Gy of carbon-ion beams. This was released by the National Seed Board of Bangladesh (NSB) in 2017 as a drought-tolerant, short-duration (95-105 days) and high-yielding (average 4.0 t/ha) variety for the Aus growing season. BINA developed a salt-tolerant wheat variety, 'Binagom-1', by selecting from a segregating population, obtained from NIAB, Pakistan. This variety was released in 2016; it can tolerate salinity (up to 12 dS/m) and produces an average yield of 2.8 t/ha. Apart from these, BINA developed four salt-tolerant groundnut varieties ('Binachinabadam-5', 'Binachinabadam-6', 'Binachinabadam-7' and 'Binachinabadam-9') by irradiation with gamma-rays. All these four varieties can tolerate salinity (up to 8 dS/m) from flowering to maturity and produce pods at 1.8-3.4 t/ha under saline soil conditions. These climate-resilient varieties are playing a significant role in food security and enhancing the nutritional status of the people of Bangladesh.
Fast ignition driven by quasi-monoenergetic ions: Optimal ion type and reduction of ignition energies with an ion beam array