Screening of popular rice cultivars towards arsenic contanmination in intensively cultivated soils of West Bangal

Field experiments were conducted at two sites of Nonaghata village under Nadia district of West Bengal during 2007–08 and 2008–09 to assess the potentiality of arsenic poisoning through rice. The experiments were laid down in factorial RBD with three replications across two sites and seven varieties viz., IR 36, Kakdwip Selection 7, Satabdi (lET 4786), Ratna, Jaldi Minikit (Local), Rasi and Khitish (lET 4094). The rice cultivars were screened for tolerance in arsenic accumulation and pooled data across years revealed that arsenic accumulation ranged from a minimum of 0.649 and 0.420 mg kg⁻¹ in Satabdi with the highest yield of 3.10 and 3.56 t ha^−l whereas, maximum accumulation of 2.19 and 1.677 mg kg^l in Jaldi Minikit (local) in Site I and II respectively.