Abiotic Stress Management News (Vol.2 No.1)

Abstract

Climate change and abiotic stresses are becoming more prevalent day by day in all over the globe. This year, it has been observed high rainfall and floods in Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra and North Eastern states and also very poor and unevenly distributed rainfall in various parts of country includingWestern and CentralMaharashtra which received less than 400 mm rainfall since onset of monsoon. This caused delay in sowing of kharif crop and resulted drought stress at vegetative growth stage of the crops. In this scenario ICAR-NIASM is working for mitigation and adaptation of abiotic stresses in crop plants by various techniques like use of plant bio regulators for mitigating water stress in onion, use of phonemics tools for screening of abiotic stress related traits in plants and use of stress mitigating microbes in crop plants. Apart from this, efforts have been made to develop herbal garden consisting of hardy and local species of medicinal and aromatic plants to identify the alternate and subsidiary crops for abiotic stress prone areas. Efforts have been made on development of human resource by educating and training the pomegranate farmers by conducting one day programme on pomegranate, workshop on organic cultivation of sugarcane, Summer School on climate change and abiotic stress management for doubling the farmers income. Apart fromresearch activities, ICAR-NIASMactively involved in Tribal Sub Plan programmes and conducted trainings for tribal farmers of Nadurbar district of Maharashtra, Mera Goan Mera Gaurav and Swatch Bharat Mission etc. ICAR-NIASM, Baramati had its first QRT meeting under the Chairmanship of Dr. Gurbachan Singh, Ex Chairman, ASRB, New Delhi. The achievements of the institute since inception was reviewed and appreciated by the QRT team.