Despite doubling national rice production over the last thirty years, Bangladesh has continually experienced an annual food grain shortage of nearly 1.5 million tonnes. This shortage is likely to continue, as rice production must increase by at least 60 per cent in order to maintain the present level of requirements by the year 2020. Increasing rice production further is an enormous task since there is no scope for horizontal expansion of the rice area. Therefore, full exploitation of the present yield potential of the existing varieties could be one of the best short-term options to satisfy...