| Mr. Bal K. Joshi, Scientist in
Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC) has been
honoured with Science and Technology Youth Award 2063/64
from Nepal Acadamy of Science and Technology (NAST).
Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Academy Girija
Prasad Koirala gave away the certificate. 
Mr. Joshi was honored with the award
for his contribution in development of high yielding
hybrid rice through identification of restorer (R) and
maintainer (B) lines from the Nepalese landraces and
cultivars.
Mr. Joshi identified five restorers
(Radha-11, Kanchan, Sabitri, Kature and Ratodhan) and
four maintainers (Bindesowari, Khumal-7, Deharadune
and Chiunde) from the Nepalese landraces and cultivars
using three CMS lines namely IR58025A, IR62829A and
IR68888A. These restorers can be used to develop the
hybrid seed and maintainers to maintain and/or to develop
new CMS lines. Mr. Joshi had found a wide variation
for heterosis among different characters. The F1 of
IR58025A/Radha-11 had grain yield of 19.7 t/ha. This
study on heterosis breeding of rice was the first time
in Nepal. He suggests to initiate hybrid rice research
on two lines system. Other contributions of Mr. Joshi
are development of descriptors for sponge gourd, documentation
of Nepalese plant genetic resources published by SAARC
and identification of high yielding stable rice and
tartary buckwheat genotypes.
Hybrid is the best for economic crop
part harvest among the lines, varieties or generations
of different genetic makeup. Two approaches, three and
two lines systems have been developed commercially in
rice for exploitation of heterosis particularly in China,
India, Vietnam, etc and expecting for the development
of one line system. Hybrid rice offers an economically
viable option to increase cultivars yield beyond the
level of semi dwarf rice cultivars. Use of three lines
is he common system of hybrid rice production, and these
three lines are cytoplasmic-genetic male sterile (CMS)
line, restorer line and maintainer line.
Mr. Joshi, Master in plant breeding
from IAAS-TU, has more than 100 scientific papers and
3 books published. He is Editor-in-Chief of Nepal Agriculture
Research Journal published by NARC and SAS-N. His contributions
on biometrics, plant breeding and biotechnology are
well recognized among the agricultural scientists and
students. Currently he is focusing on blast resistance
breeding in rice using molecular markers and molecular
breeding including quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping
for grain yield in tartary buckwheat.
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