NEWSLETTER July - December, 2014

Abstract

Inauguration of plant phenomics facility Dr. S. Ayyappan, Secretary, Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE) and Director General, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) inaugurated high-throughput plant phenotyping platform facility at CRIDA, Hyderabad, on 1st July 2014. This unique state of the art facility has been created under the National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) launched by ICAR to develop adaptation and mitigation strategies to deal with climate change impacts on Indian agriculture. Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Ayyappan highlighted the importance of investing on such state-of-the art high end research facilities for climate resilient agriculture. He appreciated the lead role taken by CRIDA for creation of such facility not only in Hyderabad but in other parts of India as well through NICRA. He complimented CRIDA scientists and staff for their dedicated work for meeting the country’s expectations. Dr. A.K. Sikka, Deputy-Director General (DDG) Natural Resource Management (NRM), in his remarks emphasized the need to develop guidelines for the use these facilities by all stakeholders. Dr. M. Maheswari, Director (Acting), CRIDA while welcoming the dignitaries briefed about the facility and outlined the roadmap for its scientific use in climate research with special reference to multiple abiotic stress tolerance. Dr. B. Venketeswarlu, Vice Chancellor, VNMKV, Parbhani, senior officers from ANGRAU, Directors of ICAR institutes located in Hyderabad graced the occasion.