ICAR-IISR celebrates its 35th Foundation Day

9^th December, 2021, Indore

The ICAR-Indian Institute of Soybean Research, Indore, Madhya Pradesh celebrated its 35^th Foundation Day today.

The Chief Guest, Dr. Tilak Raj Sharma, Deputy Director General (Crop Science), ICAR delivered the 2^nd Dr. Prem Swaroop Bhatnagar Memorial Lecture. Dr. Sharma apprised about the use of new breeding technologies like Marker Assisted Breeding, Genome Editing Techniques, Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS) and Transgenic Development for improving the Soybean Crop. The DDG opined for replacing the Soybean varieties older than 10 Years with the newer improved ones to enhance the production and productivity of the country.

The Special Guest, Dr. Sanjeev Gupta, ADG (Oilseeds and Pulses), ICAR highlighted the ICAR-IISR’s Scientists’ contributions in the development of technologies and the varieties which would help in mitigating the adverse impact of aberrant weather conditions currently experienced by the Soybean growers.

The Special Guest, Shri D.N. Pathak Executive Director, Soybean Processors Association of India (SOPA) emphasized on ensuring the availability of the newly developed improved Soybean varieties to the marginal farmers. He also stressed on the need for integrated collaboration among the research scientists, extension workers, farmers and private food industries to realize the aim.

Dr. R.R. Hanchinal, Former Chairman, PPV&FR Authority & Former Vice-Chancellor, University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad, Karnataka emphasized that with the help of modern gene pyramiding technology, the popular Soybean varieties can be improved further by staking multiple traits.

Earlier, welcoming the dignitaries, Dr. Nita Khandekar, Director, ICAR-IISR, Indore outlined the Institute’s achievements.  She also underlined the successful notification of 27 improved Soybean varieties by the Institute.

Dr. S.K. Sharma, Former Vice-Chancellor, CSK Himachal Pradesh Krishi Vishwa Vidyalaya, Palampur, Himachal Pradesh & Chairman, Research Advisory Committee of ICAR-IISR, Indore along with the other Senior Officials of ICAR Institutes and State Agricultural Universities also participated in the event.

The Institute also signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the commercialization of Institute’s Technologies with 9 Small Scale Industries / Start-Ups.

The event registered participation by more than 100 Researchers from the various Centres of ICAR-All India Coordinated Research Project on Soybean; Institute’s Staff Members and Progressive Farmers from Madhya Pradesh.

(Source: ICAR-Indian Institute of Soybean Research, Indore, Madhya Pradesh)