Training course on farm mechanisation held

Ludhiana: A one-week training course on ‘advance technologies in farm mechanisation’ kicked off at Punjab Agricultural University (PAU).

The course has been jointly organised by the department of farm machinery and power engineering and the skill development centre of PAU, for the faculty of the Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University (PJTSAU), Hyderabad, Telangana.

Ashok Kumar, dean of the College of Agricultural Engineering and Technology, said the department of farm machinery and power engineering was a front-runner in the development of technologies in the area of farm mechanisation. He said about 45 per cent mechanisation-related technologies have been developed and popularised by PAU in India.

Manjeet Singh, head of the department, said the trainees will be trained in advance machinery for tillage, sowing, transplanting, plant protection and harvesting/ threshing of various crops such as rice, cotton, maize, sugarcane grown in Telangana. They will also be imparted training in testing, ergonomics and safety aspects of agricultural machinery, he added.

Mahesh Kumar Narang, coordinator of the course, said the experts will also demonstrate various machines in the field, in addition to conduct a visit to local industries, cooperative societies and custom hiring centres.

Students felicitated

Three students of PAU have brought laurels to the university by bagging the best postgraduate and PhD thesis awards.

Fatehjeet Singh Sekhon, former student of the department of agronomy, PAU, has been conferred with the Best PhD Thesis Award 2017 by the Dr Ram Avtar Shiskha Samiti (DRASS). Thakar Singh, mentor of Sekhon, said Fatehjeet worked on ‘productivity of pigeonpea-based intercropping systems as influenced by different planting patterns and nutrients levels’.

Sharon Nagpal, student of MSc, and Kailash Chand Kumawat, PhD student, both from the department of microbiology, have been awarded the Best PG Thesis Award 2017 and the Best PhD Thesis Award 2018, respectively, by the DRASS at the Scientist Award Ceremony, held at Lucknow University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. Nagpal worked on the ‘role of plant growth promoting microbial consortium as bioprotectant for controlling fusarium wilt in chickpea’ for her Master’s degree. She is currently pursuing her PhD in the same department.

Kumawat worked on the ‘development of consortium biofertiliser in summer mungbean under salt stressed conditions’ during his PhD research. A recipient of the ICAR fellowships during his undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, Kumawat has nine research publications in reputed peer-reviewed journals to his credit. TNS