Raya Hisar 1706 Mustard Variety in India 2026

Last updated: 16 September 2026

> Quick Answer: Raya Hisar 1706 is an Indian mustard variety bred at Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar. It was announced in August 2022 and released for commercial cultivation in 2023. The seed is black, oil content is 38 per cent, and average trial yield was 27 quintals per hectare over about 140 days.

Raya Hisar 1706, usually written RH 1706, is a line of Brassica juncea, the Indian mustard called rai or raya. The university's oilseed team announced it on 17 August 2022 alongside a second release, RH 1424. It is recommended for timely sowing in irrigated fields in Haryana, Punjab, Delhi, northern Rajasthan and Jammu.

The reason this variety is worth its own page is that it is described one way in the breeding literature and measures a different way in the one published laboratory report on oil pressed from it. Both figures are public, both are attributed below, and the difference between them is left standing rather than smoothed over.

How was RH 1706 bred, and from which parents?

It came from a cross between NOID, also written RC-187, a germplasm line maintained at Hisar, and the exotic line EC-597324. That second parent was chosen as a good combiner for traits like siliqua density and seeds per siliqua. Breeders then worked it through this pipeline:

1. Pedigree selection through the segregating generations, keeping single plants of medium duration with profuse branching.
2. Screening after F6, retaining advance lines with the target fatty acid characteristic, more than 38 per cent oil content, and seed yield level with or better than the best checks.
3. Station trial, the first of four replicated trials.
4. Initial variety trial, the second.
5. Two advance variety trials, the third and fourth.
6. Checks beaten, PM-29, RH 0749 and Kranti, which RH 1706 came out ahead of.

That pipeline is why a named variety takes years rather than seasons. A 2026 review in Plant Signaling and Behavior notes that prolonged generation time is one of the main constraints in conventional Brassica juncea breeding, with new cultivars often taking decades.

Where is the variety recommended, and what does it yield?

RH 1706 is cleared for timely sowing in irrigated fields in Haryana, Punjab, Delhi, northern Rajasthan and Jammu. The university reported an average seed yield of 27 quintals per hectare, and the rest of the release record reads like this:

• Maturity: about 140 days.
• Seed oil content: 38 per cent oil in the seed.
• Where it was cleared: the All India Coordinated Research Project meeting on mustard, held at the agricultural research institute in Durgapur, Rajasthan.
• University record: listed among the Indian mustard varieties CCS HAU has contributed, alongside Laxmi, RH 9304, RH 0406, RH 0749 and RH 1424.
• Sister release: RH 1424, the rainfed answer of the pair.

If you are flipping through the pages of a seed catalog, the difference between the two matters. One deals with drought stress. RH 1706 needs water and has a proper time schedule for sowing to get the desired results.

What does the published literature say about its erucic acid?

The published literature puts RH 1706 under 2 per cent erucic acid. A 2025 paper by the variety's CCS HAU team in the Asian Research Journal of Agriculture is titled "Raya Hisar 1706: An Indian Mustard Variety with Low Erucic Acid". Its abstract calls RH 1706 the first zero erucic acid Indian mustard variety in the public sector, and puts that threshold at under 2 per cent.

In its announcement, the report conveyed the same message. Amar Ujala reported on 17 August 2022 quoting the university, which announced the variety carries under 2.0 per cent erucic acid and that the quality of its oil is now better.

For scale, the same paper notes that erucic acid is normally the major fatty acid in Indian mustard varieties at 40 to 50 per cent. The international line sits at the same place: Codex standard CXS 210-1999 allows rapeseed oil to be described as low in erucic acid only when it holds no more than 2 per cent of it as a share of total fatty acids.

Work on the trait in Indian mustard is long-running, and the driver has been the association between high erucic intake and cardiac lipidosis.

What does oil pressed from this seed measure in the laboratory?

One commercial oil pressed from Raya Hisar 1706 publishes a NIFTEM laboratory report alongside its own pack panel. These are the figures those two documents carry per 100 g.

Set against generic mustard oil, the erucic figure is roughly half the 40 to 50 g typical of the category, and the oleic figure sits well above the 12 to 15 g a generic mustard oil usually carries. Those are the comparisons the numbers support.

They are not the same as the varietal characterisation in the section above. That difference is picked up in the last section below, and this page does not try to close it.

What separates this seed from ordinary mustard seed?

The trait bred into it is compositional rather than agronomic. Indian mustard is grown for oil at 38 to 42 per cent seed oil content and supplies roughly 31 per cent of India's vegetable oil production. A quality line changes what the fat is made of, not how much fat the seed holds.

Breeders call a line carrying one of the two quality traits a single zero, meaning either erucic acid under 2 per cent or glucosinolates under 30 micromoles per gram of defatted cake. A double zero line carries both. RH 1706 is described in its own literature on the erucic axis.

This is why a variety name is worth reading on a label. Fatty acid composition is set in the seed, not in the press. Method, temperature and packaging change oxidation and flavour, not which fatty acids the plant made. The label side of that distinction is covered in what high oleic actually means on an oil label.

Who grows and presses Raya Hisar 1706 commercially?

SatRas grows Raya Hisar 1706 on its own farms in Hisar, Haryana, and presses it in a wooden kolhu. The high oleic mustard oil is ₹359 for 1 litre, and it is the one product in the range carrying a published fatty acid report. That own-farm arrangement applies to this oil and not to the others.

Most Indian mustard oil brands never name a variety at all. Naming one is falsifiable, because a released variety has a breeding record, trial data and a recommended zone anyone can look up. Which brands grow their own seed and which buy it in is a separate question, and what each wood-pressed brand actually publishes is set out in the published data comparison.

What these figures do not settle

The varietal characterisation in the published literature and the measured figure for the pressed oil are not the same number. A buyer comparing the two should ask the brand rather than assume which one describes the bottle in front of them.

Beyond that, the trial figures are university figures from multi-location trials, and a farmer's field is not a trial plot. Yield, maturity and oil content all move with sowing date, irrigation and season. A single laboratory report describes one sample from one batch rather than every bottle pressed.

Erucic acid intake as a whole is a wider question with its own evidence, set out separately. This page is educational and is not medical advice.

Frequently asked questions

Is RH 1706 the same as Raya Hisar 1706?

Yes. RH is the prefix Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University uses for its mustard releases, standing for Raya Hisar, and 1706 is the line number. Both forms name the same variety, and trial reports, seed catalogues and news coverage use them interchangeably. The sister release announced with it is RH 1424.

Which mustard species does Raya Hisar 1706 belong to?

It is Brassica juncea, the Indian mustard known as rai or raya, which covers most of India's rapeseed and mustard area. It is not yellow sarson or toria, which are separate species within the same group. The seed of this particular variety is described in its release literature as black.

Is RH 1706 a genetically modified variety?

No. It was produced by crossing two parent lines and then selecting through successive generations by the pedigree method, which is conventional plant breeding. No transgenic step appears in its published account. Most quality traits in Indian mustard have been moved this way, which is part of why the work takes years rather than seasons.

What does 38 per cent oil content mean on a mustard variety?

It means about 38 grams of oil can be recovered from 100 grams of seed under standard analysis, so it describes the seed and not the bottle. Indian mustard generally sits between 38 and 42 per cent. Actual extraction always comes in lower, because any press leaves oil behind in the cake.

What is the difference between RH 1706 and RH 1424?

They were announced together in August 2022 by the same university team but answer different problems. RH 1424 is for rainfed conditions, matures in 139 days and carries 40.5 per cent seed oil. RH 1706 is for irrigated, timely sown fields, matures in about 140 days and carries 38 per cent seed oil.

What does a value added mustard variety mean?

It is the phrase Indian breeders use for a line selected for oil or meal quality and not for yield alone. A conventional release is judged mainly on quintals per hectare and disease response. A value added release adds a compositional target, such as the fatty acid profile of the oil or the glucosinolate level of the cake.