Paddy Varieties

India is an important center of rice cultivation. The two major rice varieties grown worldwide today are Oryza sativa indica and Oryza sativa japonica. Historians believe that the indica variety of rice was first domesticated in the area covering the foothills of the Eastern Himalayas. More than 140,000 varieties of cultivated rice (the grass family Oryza sativa) are thought to exist but the exact number remains a mystery.