Advancing research on heat tolerance in pearl millet
T
o chart the future course of heat tolerance research in pearl millet, plant breeders and crop modelers from ICRISAT and scientists from five member seed companies of the Pearl Millet Hybrid Parents Research Consortium (PMHPRC) met at the ICRISAT headquarters in Patancheru on 24 January. Dr SK Gupta, Senior Scientist (Pearl Millet Breeding), Research Program on Dryland Cereals, presented the results of pearl millet heat tolerance research trials planted in 2013, and informed the group that the crop is rapidly expanding during summer in northwestern India. He also shared information on the breeding lines identified as heat tolerant, based on multi-year and multi-location evaluation in the targeted ecology. Other topics discussed at the meeting included crop modeling opportunities to track heat tolerance in
Photo: ICRISAT
Delegates of the consortium with ICRISAT staff.
pearl millet by Drs DK Murthy and Piara Singh, and molecular approaches which can be integrated in the research by Dr Rakesh Srivastava. The group also reviewed the 2013 trials and planned the activities for 2014. The activity was undertaken as part of the CGIAR Research Program on Dryland Cereals. g
ICRISAT scientists receive best research paper award A research paper by ICRISAT scientists on “Assessment of different methods of the rice (Oryza sativa L) cultivation affecting growth parameters, soil chemical, biological, and microbiological properties, water saving and grain yield in rice-rice system” has been judged the best research paper at the Annual Awards 2013 of the Directorate of Rice Research (DRR) – Indian Council of Agricultural Research. The paper was authored by Dr S Gopalakrishnan, Senior Scientist – Bioproducts, ICRISAT, and co-authored by others from ICRISAT, DRR and World Wildlife Fund including Drs R Mahendra Kumar, Pagidi B Ratna Kumari, R Vijayabharathi, Amit Singh, K Surekha, Ch Padmavathi, N Somashekar, P Raghuveer Rao, P C Latha, L V Subbarao, V R Babu, B C Viraktamath, V Vinod Goud, N Loganandhan, Biksham Gujja, Om Rupela, Mr Humayun, and Mr V Srinivas. g
Welcome Dr Spurthi N Nayak, an Indian national, joined ICRISAT, Patancheru as Special Project Scientist (Genomics and Molecular Breeding). Dr Nayak has a PhD in Genetics from the Osmania University, Hyderabad, India. Prior to joining ICRISAT, she worked as Post-Doctoral Research Associate at Wang Lab University of Florida, USA, from September 2011 to June 2013. She played a key role in establishing the laboratory, training the staff and managing the project as well as constructing core collection of sugarcane from 1167 accessions from world collection using SSR markers. Dr Manish Kumar Vishwakarma an Indian national joined ICRISAT as Visiting Scientist. He has a PhD in Genetics & Plant Breeding from Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India. He was a Senior Research Fellow at the University before joining ICRISAT. We welcome Spurthi and Manish to Team ICRISAT and wish them success.
Sad news Team ICRISAT is deeply saddened to hear about the demise of Dr Duncan McDonald, former Program Leader for Legumes (Groundnut Pathologist) at ICRISAT. His colleagues’ recollection of him is that he was an outstanding scientist and above all a great human being and a philanthropist. 6 ICRISAT HAPPENINGS 31 JANUARY 2014 1608
It is also with great sadness that we report the passing away of Ms Rathi Manohar on the evening of 27 January. Ms Rathi had worked at the International School of Hyderabad for 4 years and was a wellrespected and loved secondary school English teacher. She will be greatly missed. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of Duncan and Rathi.