Research centre will help in crop diversification: GNDU VC

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Amritsar, February 24

Guru Nanak Dev University has established a Centre for Agricultural Research and Innovation (CARI) under Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA-II). The centre has been trying to establish a synergistic relationship with various stakeholders like farmers, entrepreneurs and investors to create an ecosystem of entrepreneurship and innovation.

It would integrate research and outreach education in agriculture, food systems and the environment for establishing ecologically and economically sustainable models of agriculture, said Vice-Chancellor Dr Jaspal Singh Sandhu.

He said the centre

has successfully developed agrotechnologies for the cultivation of high-valued non-traditional crops such as low chilled apple, banana, and saffron at the experimental farm of the centre. The centre has also engaged in the development of many successful protocols for in-vitro propagation of high-valued plants such as G-9 banana, saffron, low chilled apple and elite varieties of sweet potato enriched with beta carotene and anthocyanin.

Besides, many medicinal plants which have pharmaceutical importance such as Withania somnifera, Tylophora indica and Rhodiola imbricata are being grown and mass multiplied using the existing plant tissue culture facility. Dr Sandhu, who visited the agriculture farm, said the adoption of the lab to land technologies would broaden crop diversity in the region and will provide economic dividends to the farmers and will also promote entrepreneurship in the region.

To pursue innovative research in the field of agriculture and allied areas, the centre has also established linkages with top universities and institutions of the world. Recently, the centre has signed MoU with the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, National Chung Hsing University (NCHU), Taiwan; Cornell University, USA; Punjab Agriculture University (PAU), Indigram Labs Foundation (ILF)-TBI, New Delhi, etc.