Ludhiana,
The two day “Research and Extension Specialists Workshop” kick started at Punjab Agricultural University’s Pal Auditorium today. The two day event organized by the Directorate of Extension Education will see the participation of officers from the State Department of Agriculture, scientists from Krishi Vigyan Kendras and Farm Advisory Service Centres; and deans, directors and faculty from PAU.

In his inaugural address, the Vice Chancellor, Dr B.S. Dhillon, also the Chief Guest of the day congratulated the university scientists for efficient control of white fly leading to a bumper cotton yield in the last season as well as successful control of yellow rust in wheat. He also informed that the area under PAU developed wheat varieties is steadily increasing, which is a sign that the farmers are successfully adopting them. Highlighting the importance of early maturing rice varieties in conserving the declining water table, Dr Dhillon advocated the sowing of PAU developed paddy varieties PR121 and PR 126 that are disease resistant as well. He laid stress on water conservation and paddy straw management as the chief agricultural challenges that need to be addressed during the year ahead. “This is the right time to visit farmers who have adopted methods for paddy straw management and show the healthy wheat fields to others”, opined Dr Dhillon, while adding that farmer to farmer motivation is one of the best methods of popularizing paddy straw conservation. He further added that issues like climate change, insect-pest and disease management, nutrition management, credit planning, agro forestry, self help groups call for special attention of farm experts and policy makers. Referring to the University’s extension activities’, Dr Dhillon lauded PAU’s strong reach to 5 lakh farmers of the state through social media, giving special credit to PAU’s weekly digital newspaper, Kheti Sandesh, soon to reach 4 lakh farmers of the state. Earlier Dr Dhillon took a round of the exhibits put up by various departments of PAU.

Dr J.S. Bains, Director of Agriculture, Punjab and the Guest of Honour at the workshop, stressed on the need to increase cropping intensity along with ground breaking research in order to meet the challenge of doubling farm income by 2022. He mentioned the role of genetically modified crops and vertical expansion to increase agricultural productivity. “Despite the fivefold increase in production and productivity, there are 25 crore people living in poverty and facing malnutrition”, said Dr Bains. He lauded the efforts of PAU in sensitizing farmers towards crop residue management. Stating that an open discussion was important to address farmers’ problems, Dr Bains drew attention towards biofertilizers, integrated pest management, protected cultivation, speed breeding and plant clinic as the areas of future thrust. He also dwelled on the need for boosting the ICT efforts and cropping based on climatic zones in the state.

Dr Navtej Singh Bains, Director Research, PAU apprised the audience about the new varieties recommended by PAU, keeping in mind farmers profit and resource conservation. PR 127 a new paddy variety developed by PAU is an early version of PUSA 44 and is resistant to bacterial blight. In cotton, PAU Bt1 has been recommended by the central government for sowing in Punjab and Rajasthan. Similarly another variety in desi cotton is LD 1019, forArhar, the recommended variety is AL 882, and TG 37A for groundnut. Dr Bains also shared production techniques and disease management interventions for various crops. He also highlighted farm machinery recommendations by the university.

Later, Dr Jaskaran Singh Mahal, Director Extension, proposed the vote of thanks.The technical sessions during the later part of the day comprised package of practices for rice and cotton, oil seeds, forage and millets.