Nellore Molagolukulu

Description

THE CULTURAL & ECOLOGICAL LIFE OF THIS RICE

In the region of the Pennar river in southern Andhra Pradesh, Molagolukulu was for a long time the predominant crop during the main kharif season (15th June to 15th January–this is early or muduru cultivation). The literature records two grain types: a sanna or fine molagolukulu and a budda/potti or short-stout variety. Its grains are arranged in a thread like manner on the rachis of the panicle. It is very long duration (taking nearly 7 months to ripen), very photosensitive (requiring a certain number of daylight hours to mature fully, so farmers must delay planting or sowing to match natural light cues for optimal yield), a tall grass which is therefore lodging prone, but but resistant to damages from water logging during cyclones.

Ganesh, the farmer from near Vijayawada who grows this rice from seed that (he speculates) must be a mix of two originary heirloom seed pureline selections (BCP 1 and 2), suggested that it’s a rice plant that likes its space: plant the saplings too close to each other, and tillering is reduced, plus lodging has a domino effect. But leave 2 feet between plants, and each produces nearly 80-120 tillers–the most he’s ever seen in rice plants–and the plant has room to fall over without knocking down its neighbors. The birds love this seed, to boot, so Ganesh’s own creative solution is to use the plant’s lodging habit to his own advantage: he manually allows the plants to lodge to deter birds and then harvests early.

Such growing challenges notwithstanding, molagolukulu has long been a preferred table rice and therefore in wide cultivation. The story of this rice’s ascent is, however, less a tale of tradition being preserved against the odds than of the ways in which some select old rices have thrived by modern means.

Molagolukulu comes from Nellore—a town that derives its name from the Tamil “nellu” or paddy and “uuru” or town: Nellore is the town of rice. And yet, cultivation levels in this region have not always been as extensive as they became in the early years of the 20^th century.

Cultivable land in Nellore district increased dramatically in the late 1800s with the biggest wet cultivation jump of more than 100,000 acres occurring between 1845 and 1865 thanks to the completion of the Pennar anicut during this period, and the British-created system for canal irrigation. Another major increase happened between 1866 and 1901, this time thanks to commercialization and the rising rates of profit from agriculture: the relationship between the ryot and his cultivators changed from being a single, inter-dependent unit to being more fissiparous. Declining wages threw out a large mass of farm servants; some became seasonal workers, while others were entrepreneurial enough to become tenant farmers (Reddy 1985: 180, 1987). It was at this time that “[t]he cropping pattern of the district changed from a few coarse cereals to a number of fine varieties of paddy among which molagolukulu or Nellore rice dominated the Madras markets and … was accepted as the medium of wages and rents” (Reddy 1987: 72).

In fact, molakolukulu was introduced for the first time in the around 1890, completely replacing earlier varieties like Vadasamba, Pishanam and Sannavari as a higher yielder with grains better suited for machine-husking and a white kernel (Gazetteer of Nellore, 1938: 128). Molagolukulu is thus a heirloom rice whose rice to popularity is embedded in the region’s technical and commercial agricultural transformation. From the early 20^th century onwards, the rice plains of Nellore would fulfill most of the rice required for the city of Madras and such dry districts as Salem, Coimbatore, North Arcot, Chittoor and Cuddapah.

Possibly because of molagolukulu’s popularity, this landrace appears to have been among the first heirloom landraces to have become the focus for multiple phases of “improvement,” as we can see in the table below. The Agricultural Research Station (ARS), Nellore was established as the Government Paddy Farm at Buchireddypalem in 1937, 15 kms away from Nellore in the Madras state. Initially focused on enhancing local Molagolukulu paddy varieties, it released its first pureline selection (claiming resistance to blast) as early as 1948: BCP 1. The ARS later evolved into a full-fledged Rice Research Station in 1961, and serves still as the lead center for Rice Research in the southern zone of Andhra Pradesh (as a sub-center of the National Agricultural Research Project (NARP) since 1985, with its headquarters in Tirupati). In the next decades, it would release several other molagolukulu varieties which today remain the only tethers to what was once the truly unmodified heirloom seed. Of these, BCP 1 and 2 [named after the Buchireddypalem research station] are probably the closest to the original seed. All other molagolukulu varieties grown now are derivatives from these.

In 1961, the Indian census (vol. IX, part XI-B, “Food Habits in Madras State”) recorded strong preferences for molagolukulu as a fine raw rice from Nellore, particularly among “certain sections of the population in Madras” and “some of the rich landowners in Thanjavur” (3, 22). This preference and the wide availability of Molagolukulu in Nellore meant it was readily available to Nellore messes and public eateries, at times even released to the PDS or Public Distribution System of fair price or “ration” shops (Andhra Pradesh legislative Assembly Debates, December 12, 1963).

The rice also established something of a quality standard, even as the heirloom seed was fast beinf replaced by institution-released derivatives. When NLR9672 and NLR9674 “kotha [new] molagolukulu” were released in 1986, claiming greater disease resistance, yield levels, and less photosensitivity, they were engineered with traits to “resemble those of locally preferred Molagolukulu,” and therefore are “short and bold with white, translucent kernels, [which] cook and keep well” (Reddy et al. 1986).

In all these many ways, molagolukulu has been instituted as the classic Andhra table rice. And yet, it is no longer just one rice retained in its heirloom form, but a family of rices derived from molagolukulu, all of which go by the same name. All of these are long-duration crops, however, and have been supplanted by rice types that are less challenging for growers. For this reason, getting a hold of the non-modified earliest pureline selection of molagolukulu–or ensuring that what is being sold as molagolukulu in fact is the same rice–is neither easy nor straightforward.

BCP 1	1948 ARS, Nellore	190 day maturity. Pureline Selected from Sanna Molagolokulu, Tolerant to blast [aggi tegulu]; sometimes listed just as the traditional long-duration molagolukulu rice
BCP 2	1948 ARS, Nellore	Pureline Selected from budda/potti Molagolokulu, Tolerant to blast and drought
BCP 6	1965 ARS, Nellore	Pureline Sel from Molagolokulu, Tolerant to blast and drought
Bulk H 9	1965 ARS, Nellore	Pureline Selected from Molagolokulu, Tolerant to blast and drought Bulk H/9, a good grain quality selection from the local Indian variety Pedda Molagolukulu
NLR 9674 (Kotha molagolukulu)	1977, 1979 ARS Nellore	First cross derivative molagolukulu rice variety with blast resistance

Table data source: ANGRAU 2024 and Srihari 2018: 83

Molagolukulu occupies a special place among Andhra Pradesh rices simply because it is one that has been popular enough to survive, if only in improved form or as “molakolukulu derived rice varieties.” Potti vadlu (a pureline selection which became BCP 5 in 1951), Kaki Rekkalu (a black-husked, long grain, aromatic rice), Kusuma, Jilama, Buduma—many will speak of these rice types and tell you that they have eaten them, too, but without a robust seed saving culture, it is only the names and barely the memories of these rices which survive. My mother-in-law tells of a variety called Delhi Bhogalu, which used to be grown in her paternal village near Bagepalle north of Bangalore—this is MTU13, released by Regional Agricultural Research Station (RARS), Maruteru in 1937-38 and likely therefore to be a pureline selection of some pre-existing heirloom grain, probably from Delhi or the Northern regions (ANGRAU, 2024). But today, such grains are near-impossible to find largely because (unlike Tamil Nadu, Odisha, and some other regions) the turn to improved, hybrid seeds has well-near wiped out farmer-bred heirloom varieties.

Other names for this rice: Sanna (fine) Molagolukulu, Laavu (fat) molagolukulu, Nellore rice

NUTRITIONAL AND MEDICINAL PROPERTIES

• Molagolukulu is prized for its cooking and keeping qualities, and for its taste and texture as a table rice, not so much for its nutraceutical profile. Its nutritional and medicinal profile are therefore not scientifically established in the available literature.
• Anecdotally, however, those who consume this rice regularly feel it to be light on the stomach, but with high satiety: “you don’t feel de-energized for a long time after eating molagolukulu”
• There is also some anecdotal evidence to suggest it is useful in keeping gastric issues in check, and that it helps those suffering from constipation.
• The grower from whom we obtained this rice also theorized that the way heirloom long-duration rices grow, using all available resources to push out tall, bushy plants with many tillers, means that they are naturally not heavy carbohydrates. He suggested that this rice should be investigated for its value to diabetics.

CULINARY USES

• Primarily favoured as a table rice, in polished form, for texture and taste
• grains stay separate on cooking, the rice is light on stomach, and yet satisfies quickly
• Good keeping quality: Molagolukulu rice is said to keep for nearly a day after cooking (Sreelakshmi et al. 2023: 109), which perhaps explains its popularity with Andhra messes such as Nellore mess and Komala mess on trunk road (the latter established in 1936 by the late P.S. Venkatachalam and serves “molagolukulu” rice on banana leaves along with 16 special varieties of food items).

WHO GROWS THIS RICE & WHERE CAN I BUY?

We have Molagolukulu from a farmer committed to growing the more challenging longer-duration varieties like Molagolukulu: Ganesh, a farmer near Vijayawada in the region irrigated by the Pattiseema project (specifically, the canal connecting the Krishna and Godavari rivers), and thanks to Raaghuveer who put us in touch. We are unfortunately not aware of reliable purchasing sources at this time.

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

1. 2024. “60 Years of Excellence, the ANGRAU [Acharya N G Ranga Agricultural University] Journey 1964-2024.”
2. Census of India, 1961. Vol. IX, part XI-B: “Food Preferences in Madras State”
3. Gazetteer of the Nellore District, brought up to 1938. “Paddy: its varieties,” p.128
4. Reddy, M. Atchi. 1985. “The Commercialization of agriculture in Nellore District: 1850-1916: Effects on Wages, Employment and Tenancy” in Essays on Commercialization of Indian Agriculture, (eds), K.N. Raj, et. al, Oxford University Press Delhi, pp. 163
5. Reddy, M. Atchi. 1987. “Agrarian Structure of Nellore: Tenants and Tenancy 1800-1980.” Social Scientist, Mar. 1987, 15(3): 48-76
6. Reddy, G. V., D. V. S. R. Rao, K. J. Reddy, K. S. Narayana, G. V. Rao. 1986. “NLR9672 and NLR9674 released for cultivation in southern Andhra Pradesh.” International Rice Research Newsletter, Vol. 11, No. 1, 3-4
7. Srihari, Gorige. 2018. “Genetic Divergence and Character Association of Molakolukulu Rice (Oryza sativa L.).” MSc Thesis, Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding Agricultural College, Bapatla-522 101
8. Sreelakshmi Ch*, Ramesh Babu P, Krishna Naik R, Vineetha U, Madhusudhan P, Paramasiva I, Harathi PN, Rajasekhar P and Suryanarayana Y. 2023. “NLR 3186: A Long Duration Blast Resistant Rice Culture Suitable for Irrigated Ecology of Andhra Pradesh.” Journal of Rice Research 2023, Vol 16, No. 1, pp. 109-115