UK delegation visits PAU

Ludhiana, March 19, 2015: A delegation of wheat researchers from United Kingdom visited the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) to explore the possibility of developing a collaborative research project, funded by Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), UK. The visiting team comprised Dr Peter Robert Shewry, Distinguished Research Fellow, Department of Plant Biology and Crop Sciences, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, UK and Dr Malcolm John Hawkesford, Deputy Head, Department of Plant Biology and Crop Sciences, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, UK. The delegation also included Dr Simon Griffiths and Dr Alexandra Mary Allen from UK.

Welcoming the delegation to PAU, Dr B.S. Dhillon, Vice- Chancellor, PAU highlighted the history, organisation and achievements of the University. He said the research work at PAU had a great impact on farm productivity at farmers’ fields. The Punjab farmers very eagerly lapped up all the PAU recommended technologies that contributed to the enhancement of productivity, he added.

Dr H.S. Gupta, Director General, Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) organized the visit of the team to BISA Ladhowal Farm, Ludhiana wherein he discussed various research experiments being conducted on conservation agriculture.

Accompanying the visiting team to the research farm at PAU, Dr Balwinder Singh, Director of Research explained about the crop nutrition experiments and wheat breeding programme. The team took keen interest in the wheat breeding programme, focusing on improving the nutritional as well as the product quality improvement, he said. The team was also shown the material being generated by PAU wheat breeding programme with the objective of improving grain protein content and grain micronutrient concentration, especially, grain zinc, he added. The delegation appreciated the extensive efforts, being made by PAU wheat breeding programme towards improving product quality, especially, the chapatti quality.

The team also discussed various experiments, being conducted in the Department of Soil Sciences, PAU on plant nutrition requirements, especially, on nitrogen application to improve nitrogen use efficiency.