Experts from the National Agri Food Institute and the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, led by officials of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), have developed a new high-yielding and disease-resistant variety of wheat. The new variety has been notified for cultivation in the Indo-Gangetic Plains and other areas which include Punjab, Haryana and Western UP. The variety will be better resistant against yellow rust, a common disease hitting crops in these regions. KV Prabhu, Joint Director (Research), IARI, said the new variety had been named HD-3086. "It is much better in terms of yield per acre in comparison to the vastly popular existing variety HD-2967," said Prabhu, who heads a team of experts. Prabhu said the existing variety which covered a large area was free from the dreaded yellow rust and no crop in in Patiala, Sangrur and Fatehgarh Sahib districts had been attacked by this disease. He said Punjab was poised to harvest a bumper wheat crop. The wheat output of the country was likely to reach close to 100 million tones, he added.