Performance Study of Koshihikari Rice Variety and Its Economic Prospect in Comparison with Three Popular Rice Varieties of Bangladesh

The research was conducted to observe the growth and yield performance of one exotic rice variety namely Koshihikari in comparison with other three popular high yielding rice varieties of Bangladesh and its economic prospect. The experiment was laid out in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with five replications. Experimental site is located in the geographical location of 22º47´ N and 89º34´ E at the Dr. Purnendu Gain Field Laboratory of Agrotechnology Discipline, Khulna University, Bangladesh and the field was typical rice growing medium high land with clay-loam soil texture. Four rice varieties namely BRRI dhan28, BRRI dhan47 and BRRI dhan50 and Koshihikari rice variety of Japan were tested to compare the yield potential. At harvest, the tallest plant height was produced by BRRI dhan47 (93.19 cm) while the most dwarf plant by Koshihikari (78.30 cm) and the maximum number of tiller hill-1 (16) was produced by Koshihikari. BRRI dhan50 was produced the longest panicle (22.87 cm) and maximum number of grains panicle-1 (119) while the shortest panicle (14.93 cm) and minimum grains panicle-1 (60) was produced by Koshihikari variety. The highest 1000-grain weight (22.21 g) and grain yield (7.62 t ha-1) were observed in BRRI dhan47 whereas the lowest 1000-grain weight (17.30 g) was observed in BRRI dhan50 and the minimum grain yield (5.6 t ha-1) was found in Koshihikari variety. However, Koshihikari has some performance limitations, but it has brighter economic prospect than the other three popular rice varieties of Bangladesh because cultivating Koshihikari only in 0.1% mean rice cultivated land area in Boro season in Bangladesh and exporting at the price of only 10% of retailer price in world market may bring about BDT 1091 million export revenue that will be more than total revenue earned by Bangladesh by exporting rice at present.