51st Annual Group Meeting Workshop organized

12 - 13 March, 2021, Indore

The ICAR-Indian Institute of Soybean Research, Indore, Madhya Pradesh organized the “Virtual 51^st Annual Meeting of the All India Coordinated Soybean Research Project” from 12^th to 13^th March, 2021.

In his inaugural address, Dr. Tilak Raj Sharma, Deputy Director General (Crop Science), ICAR emphasized on promoting the diversity of Soybean varieties and climate-resilient, high-yielding Soybean varieties among the farmers of different Soybean-growing states of the country. He also accentuated on using the molecular tools like Pre-breeding, Marker Assisted Selection, Genome-Wide Association Studies for fastening the process of varietal development in the shortest possible time.

Dr. Sanjeev Gupta, ADG (Oilseeds & Pulses), ICAR highlighted the current status of the Soybean seed replacement rate which is relatively low as compared to other crops and the need for the popularization of location-specific new varieties.

Dr. D.K. Yadav, ADG (Seeds), ICAR along with the senior officials of ICAR Institutes and State Agricultural Universities also attended the meeting.

Earlier, Dr. Nita Khandekar, Director, ICAR-IISR, Indore, Madhya Pradesh briefed about the achievements in research / technology programmes undertaken on Soybean during the Year - 2020 by the different Coordinating Centres of All India Integrated Soybean Research Project across the country.

Dr. Hanchinal, Former Chairman, Plant Protection Variety and Farmers’ Right Act stressed on taking-up the research work using Induced Mutation Breeding in collaboration with Bhabha Atomic Research Centre to break the yield stability in Soybean.

More than 150 scientists from the different Centres associated with the All India Coordinated Soybean Research Project on Soybean (AICRPS) virtually attended the meeting.

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