Improving Cereal Productivity Through Climate Smart Practices

Dr Sindhu Sareen has more than 25 years of research experience in genetics and cytogenetics. Presently she is working on abiotic stresses particularly heat and drought tolerance. She is associated with various national and international collaborative projects such as NICRA, ICAR extramural research project, National Agricultural Science fund (NASF), DBT – BBSRC, USAID- CIMMYT projects. She has developed various trait specific genetic stocks. She has more than 100 publications to her credit including 70 peer reviewed. 10 book chapters. She is General Secretary of the Society for Advancement of Wheat and Barley Research. She organized 4th International Group Meeting on “Wheat productivity enhancement through climate smart practices” as Organizing Secretary and is a recipient of the YS Murty Young Scientist Award and Best Women Scientist Award.

Dr. Pradeep Sharma received his Ph.D. in 2002 on the cloning and characterization of cotton leaf curl viruses. He performed his postdoctoral research (2006 2008) at Tohoku University, Japan with Prof M Ikegami as a JSPS fellow, where he worked on RNA silencing. He also undertook postdoctoral work at the ARO Volcani Center, Israel with Prof Y Gafni (2006 2006), focusing on the nuclear import of genes using yeast one hybrid system, as a DST scientist (2006), as a visiting scientist at South Dakota State University (2011) investigating allele mining and comparative genomics in rice, and at Oklahoma State University (2016) on small noncoding RNAs. In 2008, Dr. Sharma joined the faculty in the Department of Crop Improvement at ICAR-Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research, Karnal, where he is the Principal Scientist. He directs a research group studying the role of sRNAs and epigenetics for biotic and abiotic stresses, molecular dynamics simulation, and NGS-based marker discovery in wheat. His group also decoded Karnal bunt genomes, the development of SSR markers for population structure, and diversity analysis of bunts and smut fungi. He teaches courses in Molecular Biology and Computational Biology to graduate students. Dr. Sharma has published more than 110 national and international research papers, 25 invited chap ters, eight scientific review articles, and he has edited seven books on biotic and abiotic stresses including RNAi tech nology. Dr. Sharma was conferred the Young Scientist’s Award (biannual 2005 2006) of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences; the Pran Vohra Award (2008 2009) of the Indian Science Congress Association; a Fellow of the National Academy of Biological Sciences (2015); a Fellow of the Indian Virological Society (2012); and a Fellow of the Society for Advancement of Wheat and Barley Research (2019). He has worked at and visited many pioneering lab oratories of the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, China, the Netherlands, Indonesia, Turkey, and Israel.

Dr. Charan Singh’s major area of interest is breeding of wheat genotypes for biotic (Spot blotch, rusts), abiotic (drought) tolerance/resistance and DUS characterization. Presently, he is working as Scientist (Plant Breeding) in Crop Improvement, ICAR- Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research (IIWBR), Karnal, India.Dr. Charan Singh’s major area of interest is breeding of wheat genotypes for biotic (Spot blotch, rusts), abiotic (drought) tolerance/resistance and DUS characterization. Presently, he is working as Scientist (Plant Breeding) in Crop Improvement, ICAR- Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research (IIWBR), Karnal, India.

Dr. Poonam Jasrotia is a Senior Scientist in Agricultural Entomology in ICAR-Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research, Karnal. Her research focuses on the mechanism and basis of aphid resistance in wheat and barley crops and identifying novel sources of aphid resistance for use by breeders in varietal developmental program. She is also associated with research to develop polymer-enhanced botanical alternatives to synthetic chemicals for management of stored grain pests of wheat. Dr. P.Jasrotia has a diverse background with work at Agricultural Research Organization (ARO), Volcani Center of Israel, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, USA and Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center at Michigan State University, MI, USA. She did climate-change related research while working as Sustainability Research Co-ordinator for Great Lakes Bioenergy Research. She has published her research work in high impact journals like PNAS, Global Change Biology-Bioenergy, Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment etc.

Dr. G P Singh is currently research manager and director for the ICAR Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research with the responsibility of fulfilling the programme objective of ensuring food and nutrition security to all. Among his contributions are the development of 48 wheat & barley varieties including the HD 2967 & HD 3086 wheat which occupies nearly 50 % of the total area wheat production area.

He received the Dr. Rafi Ahmed Kidwai, Dr. BP Pal and, Dr. V S Mathur Memorial Award, BGRI Gene Stewardship Award and Nanaji Deshmuk Outstanding team award, Dr. Amrik Singh Cheema Award, AIASA Agricultural Leadership Award. He is a fellow of National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Indian Society of Genetics and Plant Breeding, and Society for Advancement of Wheat and Barley Research; and is presently President of Society of Advancement of Wheat Research.