Càmara Arrossera del Montsià leads the agronomic part of the Neurice project

Càmara Arrossera del Montsià has collaborated in the Neurice project (New commercial European RICE) and has managed to register in these last 4 years of work a total of 2 varieties of rice tolerant to salinity.

Càmara participates in this project as leader of the agronomic part of the 3 countries that grow rice within the project: Italy, France and Spain. Neurice's main objective was to evaluate the resistance to salt of the different varieties and also the agronomic behavior of each of them. And keeping fighting the apple snail.

Throughout these 4 years of project, more than 40 varieties have been taken to the field, which are born from different saltol crosses with varieties grown in Delta, both long grain and medium grain. The technique used for this is introgression technique, a classic non-transgenic improvement technique.

After evaluating the varieties in the greenhouse, those that gave the best results were taken to the field to see their agronomic behavior, comparing their results in salinized and non-salinized fields.

Finally, a total of 2 varieties are being registered commercially (2 in Spain, 2 in France and 2 in Italy). The next step, once submitted for registration, is to try to make them available to rice farmers in 2022.