News Vol. 31, No. 3 July-September, 2015 Dr. Trilochan Mohapatra Joins as Director, ICAR-IARI Eminent geneticist, Dr. Trilochan Mohapatra joined as Director, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi on August 28, 2015. Born on April 20, 1962 at Kharibil village, Cuttack district, Odisha, India, Dr. Trilochan Mohapatra completed his B.Sc. (Agriculture) from OUAT, Bhubaneswar in 1985 and M.Sc. and Ph.D in Genetics from Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi in the year 1987 and 1992, respectively. Dr. T. Mohapatra Before taking over the position of Director of this prestigious Institute, Dr. Mohapatra worked as the Director of ICAR-National Rice Research Institute (Formerly CRRI), Cuttack, Odisha since 2012 and as a researcher & teacher for about 20 years at the ICAR-National Research Centre on Plant Biotechnology, New Delhi. Dr. Mohapatra has been working in the area of molecular genetics and genomics. He has over 145 research papers in national and international journals of repute and several book chapters. His research accomplishments include development of the first high yielding Basmati rice variety resistant to bacterial leaf blight through molecular marker assisted selection, and physical mapping and genome sequencing of rice and tomato. His contribution to science is reflected from high h-index and i10-index. Dr. Mohapatra has the distinction of receiving several honours and awards in recognition of his excellent academic and research contributions including the INSA Young Scientist Award, Prof. LSS Kumar Memorial Award, NAAS-Tata Award, IARI BP Pal Award, DBT Bio-science Award and NASI-Reliance Industries Platinum Jubilee Award. He also got the Recognition Award of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences for the biennium 2013-14 for significant contributions in Plant Improvement, and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Indian Genetics Congress in recognition of outstanding contribution in the field of Plant Genetics. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, New Delhi, Indian Dr. T. Mohapatra (right) taking over National Science Academy, New Delhi, and National Academy of charge from Dr. Ravinder Kaur, Director Sciences-India, Allahabad. (Acting), IARI RESEARCH conditions of Northern Hills Zone. average grain yield of 5.27 t/ha HS 562 produced an average grain under irrigated condition of Wheat Variety Identified yield of 3.6 t/ha which was 6.2% Northern Hills Zone. It has shown A wheat variety HS 562 was higher than that of the best check good levels of field resistance to leaf identified for release for timely HS 507 under rainfed conditions. It and stripe rusts. It has good chapati sown rainfed and irrigated also performed well and gave on an and bread making qualities. This wing size, unequal wing size improved mineral bioavailability the wheat crop growth on daily Development” on September 28, between pair of wings, Ectopic with an increase of 21.2% in iron, basis based on weather, soil, variety 2015 at Dr. B.P. Pal Auditorium in wing veins, one wing missing from 11.7% in zinc and 13.8% in calcium and management practices and IARI. He narrated his journey of pharate adults (unenclosed pupa) levels due to the decreased phytate facilitates the simulation of wheat science in the field of agriculture for or adult fly, absence of bristles from content. crop growth and yield. Web the benefit of the faculty and abdomen, polarity defects in I n f o C r o p - W h e a t h a s b e e n students. Prof. V. L. Chopra, former abdominal bristles, etc. S e l e c t i o n o f P o t e n t i a l developed using Visual Studio DG, ICAR and former Secretary, Genomic Region to Differ- Express, SQL Server, NET D A R E , p r e s i d e d o v e r t h e Low-phytate Soybean with A field view and grains of wheat variety entiate Chaetomium species framework 4.0 and hosted at p r o g r a m m e a n d p r e c i s e l y HS 562 Improved Mineral Bioavailability Prof. P.K. Gupta, Hon. Emeritus for DNA Barcoding http://InfoCrop.iari.res.in. System Professor, Chaudhary Charan Singh summarized the lecture. The variety is expected to provide a An over expressing Gmphy has been designed using modular University, Meerut and INSA Senior lecture brought to the forefront the The ITS region which was Scientist delivering the Teachers’ Day high yielding variety option for the cassette containing phytase gene approach and has separate Lecture deep seated love he has for farmers confirmed as primary barcode for farmers of this region. under the control of a develop- modules for input variable, and IARI as well as his unparalleled Chaetomium species identification mentally regulated (seed specific) management conditions and President of India. Prof. P.K. Gupta, service that brought ‘Green Identification of High Iron as the ITS sequence, identification promoter was transformed into output – results. General users have H o n . E m e r i t u s P r o f e s s o r, Revolution’ in the country. and Zinc Lines of Pearl Millet and is highly conserved between soybean cv. DS 9712 using the the flexibility to run and simulate C h a u d h a r y C h a r a n S i n g h the species and the b-tubulin is Institute Research Council Three breeding lines PPMI 903, Agrobacterium mediated coty- the growth of a wheat crop and get University, Meerut and INSA Senior selected as secondary barcode due PPMI 904 and PPMI 906 were found information on the crop fertilizer Scientist delivered the Teachers’ Day (IRC-1) Meetings ledonary node method. The to its high barcode gap, net group to possess stable high iron and zinc dynamics, environmental impact, Lecture on the topic “Deteriorating The Institute Research Council presence of the transgene cassette mean distances between the contents across different locations, crop growth and yield, pest level of teaching: My experiences (IRC-I) meetings of IARI were held in the resulting transgenic plants species, diversity in entire namely, Coimbatore, Delhi, damage, soil nitrogen dynamics, and thoughts as a teacher” where he from July 28 to August 19, 2015 was confirmed by molecular population and probability of Durgapura, Gwalior, Hisar, water balance and weather at a shortlisted the factors responsible under the chairmanship of Dr. analysis, indicating the stable c o r r e c t i d e n t i f i c a t i o n f o r Jamnagar, Ludhiana, Mandor and single day interval or as defined by for the deterioration and the steps to Ravinder Kaur, Director (Acting.), integration of the transgene. The Chaetomium species after sequence Tirupati in 2013 and in 2012-13 and the user while the registered users overcome them. Prof. R. B. Singh, IARI and Co-chairmanship of Dr. developing transgenic (T4) seeds multigene (Actin, b-tubulin, 2013-14 at IARI, New Delhi in can insert and edit data. This can be former Director, IARI and former K.V. Prabhu, Joint Director revealed a 2.7 fold up-regulation in Calmodulin, ITS, rpb-2 and tef-1) comparison to ICTP 8203 (Fe – 79 accessed on mobile device and the Chairman, ASRB presided over the (Research), IARI. The IRC meetings the phytase transcripts as well as a 2 analysis. ppm; Zn – 61ppm) which is the results from the simulations are function. fold up-regulation in the phytase were held in the school mode, check variety. validated with the observed results. activity which correlated to a Web-based Crop Model wherein, individual scientist of each This was further developed to be Special Lecture significant (38-43%) reduction in InfoCrop-Wheat to Simulate school made a brief presentation of Decision Support System for wheat Padma Vibhushan Prof. M.S. his/her contributions with respect to phytate levels compared to the non- the Growth and Yield of crop management under moisture Swaminathan delivered a talk on the research, teaching and extension transgenic controls. The low- Wheat and temperature stress conditions. “65 Years of Adventure in activities during the year 2014-15 PPMI 903 PPMI 904 PPMI 906 phytate soybean seeds showed Crop simulation models The user can accesses web InfoCrop Agricultural Research and across disciplines. The performance predicts the impacts on crop Wheat crop model using the URL of the scientists was evaluated by the Phenotypic Characterization of growth and yield without actually http://InfoCrop.iari.res.in school coordinators and nominated DWnt4 Mutants in Drosophila conducting the experiment, once experts. Based on the observations the crop conditions are para- EDUCATION made during knockdown of DWnt4 m e t e r i z e d , c a l i b r a t e d a n d Teachers’ Day Lecture 2015 EXTENSION gene using different tissue specific validated. Taking these things into drivers, we observed the mutant consideration, a web based The Teachers’ Day Lecture 2015 Kisan Sammelan Organized AL7 RF2 flies DWnt4 , DWnt4 and other application of crop simulation was organized on September 4, K r i s h i V i g ya n K e n d r a , five mutants of DWnt4 isolated in model InfoCrop -Wheat was 2015 at the Dr. B.P. Pal Auditorium Shikohpur (Gurgaon) organized a Drosophila lab of the Division of designed and developed. Web of the Institute to pay tributes to P a d m a V i b h u s h a n P r o f. M . S . kisan sammelan on September 26, Genetics.