ICAR–National Research Centre for Banana (ICAR-NRCB), Tiruchirappalli in collaboration with Alliance International Bioversity & the International and Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Italy a CGIAR institute organized an International workshop on ‘Phenotyping for Drought Tolerance’ at ICAR-NRCB, Tiruchirappalli from 7th to 11thMarch, 2023.
Inauguration of this International workshop was held at ICAR-NRCB on 7thMarch, 2023. While delivering the Chief Guest address through online Dr. A.K. Singh, Deputy Director General (Horticulture Sciences), ICAR, New Delhi congratulated ICAR-NRCB and Alliance bioversity international and CIAT for conducting an important workshop and mentioned that mitigation of drought by growing drought tolerant cultivars is an important strategy in the current agriculture and he hoped that this event will pave the way for identification of more drought tolerant cultivars in different crops. Dr. Sebastien Carpentier, Senior Scientist, Alliance Bioversity International and CIAT was the Guests of Honor.
This training program aims to train the researchers to scientifically identify the crop genotypes showing drought tolerance under field conditions. A total of 18 researchers from France, Belgium, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea, The Philippines and India have participated.
Valedictory function of the workshop was held on 10 March, 2023. While delivering the Chief Guest address through online Dr. V.B. Patel, Assistant Director General, ICAR, New Delhi lauded that food security in the21st century will rely increasingly on the release of cultivars with improved resistance to drought conditions and with high yield stability. In this scenario this workshop will certainly will pave the newer insight in drought management under Indian condition. In his presidential address Dr. R. Selvarajan, Director ICAR-NRCB underlined that the workshop inculcates the trainees on field identification of drought tolerant cultivars of banana and other crops and thereby help to solve the problems faced by farmers cultivating in water deficit areas by introduction of drought tolerant selections, hybrids etc. He also said by introducing AI (Artificial Intelligence) based soil moisture sensor dependent precise irrigation could save approximately 1000 billion lit. of water annually and the carbon footprint could be significantly reduced in India. Dr. I. Ravi, Course Director of the programme explained the importance of phenotyping in the era of water deficit and he briefed about the impact of the training programme and the feedback from the participants. Dr. M. MayilVaganan and Dr. C. Karpagam, Course Coordinator& Principal Scientist of ICAR-NRCB proposed welcome address and vote of thanks respectively.
