CRITERION III: RESEARCH, CONSULTANCY AND EXTENSION 3.1 Promotion of Research
B. MSME Scheme for Business Incubation
3.3 Research Facilities
45. Molecular markers for broadening the Lead Centre: DWR, December - 31.3.2014
genetic bas of stem rust resistance Karnal 2009
genes effective against strain Ug99" Cooperating Centre:
(Project short title - “Biotic Stress Division of Genetics;
(Rusts)” [Indo-Australian Programme IARI, R.S. Wellington (ICAR - Plan of DWR)]
Central Seed Testing Laboratory (CSTL): The Seed Testing Laboratory of the Institute has got the status of CSTL under the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India, and is serving as a Referral Laboratory for all the 96 seed testing labs located in different parts of the country. It is a member laboratory of International Seed Testing Association (ISTA), Zurich, Switzerland, and is in the process of obtaining ISTA accreditation through regular trainings, the laboratory is imparting skills to the personnel of the State Seed Testing Labs of the country.
Quality Seed Facility: Through a Japan Grant-Aid-Project, national seed facility has been established for seed research, processing and storage. Under this project, infrastructure has been developed, highly sophisticated equipments have been put in place and state-of-the-art technologies have been used in seed science and technology. The National Facility is sufficient enough to provide medium-term storage for 4.5 tonnes of authentic seed samples of all released varieties (approx. 5000) from the National Agricultural Research System (NARS).
Pesticide Referral Laboratory: National Pesticide Referral Laboratory was established under Team of Excellence, National Agricultural Technology Project in 2002. The establishment of this laboratory was a step towards global competitiveness in generating reliable data, ensuring quality produce, export certification and developing human resources in pesticide residue analysis. All the facilities as per international standards required for pesticide residue analysis in various substrates have been established with modern equipments such as FT-IR Spectrophotometer, Gas Chromatograph, High Performance Liquid Chromatograph, GC-Mass Spectrometer and Rotary Flash Evaporator. The laboratory has been accredited vide no ISO/IEC 17025 by National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL).
Phenomics Facility: The Phenomics Facility has been developed in 2012-13 under the Project National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA). It is the first field phenomics facility in the world. In addition, automated non-destructive high precision phenomics facility is being established under the funding support of National Agricultural Science Fund of ICAR.
Nutraceutical Laboratory: The Nutraceutical Laboratory was established in 2010 and is located in the Division of Agricultural Chemicals. It is a state-of-the-art facility for isolation, purification and chemical characterization of bioactive compounds, in vitro efficacy evaluation and formulation.
Satellite Data Reception, Processing and Management Facility: A state-of- the-art satellite data reception and management facility was established in the Division of Agricultural Physics in 2012. It is first of its kind in the NARS of India. The facility comprises roof-mounted antenna system with Radar and laboratory with hardware and software to directly receive and process remote sensing images in real time from USA, European and Chinese satellite sensors. The system will provide data to registered users of ICAR institutes, SAUs etc. Over the web and act as a catalyst to expand the utilization of remote sensing data for different soil atmospheric-plant applications.
3.3.2 Does the university have an Information Resource Centre to cater to the needs of researchers? If yes, provide details of the facility.
Yes. Agricultural Knowledge management Unit (AKMU) and IARI Library which serves as Information Resource Centre to cater the needs
of the researchers. The IARI library is one of the oldest and possibly the best in South Asia. Prior to India’s Independence, the library was dedicated to Lord Linlithgow and is known as “Linlithgow Library”.
It has the status of National Agricultural Library of India, and is regarded as one of the 10 best agrobiological libraries of the world. It houses over 6 lakhs publications including 1 lakh books/
monographs,3,50,000 journal volumes, 45,000 bulletins, 15,000 post graduate thesis, 10,000 pamphlets, 30,000 news clippings, 30,000 reports, and other reference materials. The Library functions as the repository of FAO, IDRC and AVRDC publications and also as the National Depository for CGIAR institutes publications. The library has, on its roll, 2000 members and serves about 80,000 visitors every year. A training cell has been established with the financial support from LIS-NATP for Scopus demonstration to scientists of IARI, OVID database training, and interactive learning programme and for practical classes of the students of USI and AIS courses and various other training/demonstrations of the Institute. Under a memorandum with C-DAC a total of 5143 books having 32.5 lakhs pages have been digitized and are available for consultation under the name “digital library of India”. Further digitization of old and rare documents and institutional publications of all types is being done under e-Granth project of National Agricultural Innovation Project (NAIP).
3.3.3 Does the university have a University Science Instrumentation Centre (USIC)? If yes, have the facilities been made available to research scholars? What is the funding allotted to USIC?
Each discipline has a common facility lab for providing free access to the students. The various divisions of the Institutes are adequately equipped with sophisticated instrumentation facilities such as: Atomic absorption spectrophotometer, Confocal microscopy microarray, Scanning electron microscope, X-ray Diffraction, Super critical fluid extraction, Mass Spectrometer, NMR Spectrometer, Amino Acid Analyzer, Ultracentrifuges, Gamma Ray Spectrometer, Infrared Spectrometer, Nitrogen
Emission Analyzer, Walk-in-growth chambers, PRs, Bioreactors, Ballistic Particles delivery System, Differential Thermal Analyzers, GCMS, Gas Chromatographs, Auto Nitrogen Analyzer, Refrigerated Centrifuges, Scintillation and GM Counters, Nano drop, UV Spectrophotometer, Infrared Gas Analyzer, Tritium Enrichment Plant, Gamma Irradiation Chambers, Lyophilizer, Food Extruder, HPLCs, Refrigerator Shakers, Eletrophorator, microarray facility, Sanger DNA sequencer, Next Generation Sequencing platforms, etc. These are available to all the researchers in IARI as per their research needs. Further, National Phytotron Facility serves as common facility to conduct controlled environment experiments, generation advancement of breeding lines in the off season, experiment on transgenics, etc.
The Institute has a total farm area of 500 ha, nearly 85% of the farm area is irrigated and the rest is available for rainfed/dryland research of different crops. The irrigation systems consist of underground pipeline with a chain
of interlinked 20 tube wells and two storage reservoirs. There is sewage treatment plant and the treated water is used for irrigating rice and other crops grown for seed purpose. To meet the research and technology development need of protected agriculture, specially horticulture, vegetable seed production and nursery production, about 10 ha area of the farm has been put under variable types of temperature, humidity and fertigation controlled glass and plastic houses. The Institute has established Farm Operation Service Unit (FOSU) in 1977 to take care of planning and providing various operational and machinery services and irrigation to the IARI farm research.
3.3.4 Does the university provide residential facilities (with computer and internet facilities) for research scholars, post-doctoral fellows, research associates, summer fellows of various academies and visiting scientists (national/international)?
Yes. IARI is a fully residential campus for the students. Institute has five hostels for Boys (Hemant, Vasant, Shishir, Grishm and Sharad), one for Girls (Varsha) and one Saraswati Apartment for married students.
These are spacious, well-furnished hostels. Apart from hygienic foods, hostels provide recreational facilities including TVs, indoor games, book shop, hair dressing saloon etc. Each hostel has its own wardens, a member of faculty who administers the hostels.
Internet facility for IARI Post Graduate Students: Internet and intranet and Wi-Fi connectivity has been provided at all the hostels and guest houses for trainees and visiting faculty. Creation of this facility in students’ hostels is a step forward in the area of knowledge dissemination and awareness for establishing a healthy and productive relationship between scientists and students for overall national agricultural development. The facility is made available to IARI students free of charge. The course schedules along with contents and suggested reading are also available on IARI intranet system.
3.3.5 Does the university have a specialized research centre/workstation on-campus and off-campus to address the special challenges of research programmes?
Yes. The Institute has specialized research centres such as National Phytotron Facility, Advanced Centre for Plant Virology, Water Technology Centre, Centre for Environmental Science and Climate Resilient Agriculture (CESCRA), Centre for Protected Cultivation Technology, Centre for Agricultural Technology Assessment and Transfer and Agricultural Knowledge management Unit (AKMU) to address the specialized research needs. Further, the Institute has the following Regional Stations for specific purposes:
• Amartara Cottage, Shimla, Himachal Pradesh (Horticultural technology)
• Indore, Madhya Pradesh (Wheat breeding, particularly durum quality wheat)
• Kalimpong, West Bengal (Plant virus research)
• Karnal, Haryana (Seed research and production)
• Katrain, Himachal Pradesh (Vegetable research and vegetable seed production)
• Pune, Maharashtra (Plant virus research)
• Pusa, Bihar (Wheat, pulses and fruits research)
• Tutikundi, Shimla, Himachal Pradesh (Wheat and barley breeding)
• Wellington, Tamil Nadu (Wheat breeding, germplasm collection and maintenance)
The Institute also has Off-Season Nurseries for rice at Aduthurai, Tamil Nadu and for pulses at Dharwad, Karnataka.
3.3.6 Does the university have centres of national and international recognition/repute? Give a brief description of how these facilities are made use of by researchers from other laboratories.
The Institute has Centres and facilities of national recognition. These include National Phytotron Facility, Advanced Centre for Plant Virology, Water Technology Centre, Centre for Environmental Science and Climate Resilient Agriculture (CESCRA), Centre for Protected Cultivation Technology and Advanced Centre for Plant Virology. In addition, the Institute has nationally recognized labs such as Centre for Soil, Plant and Water Analysis, Radio Tracer Laboratory, Central Seed Testing Laboratory (CSTL), Quality Seed Facility, Pesticide Referral Laboratory, Nutraceutical Laboratory and Satellite Data Reception, Processing and Management Facility. These facilities are accessible to the faculty and students of the Institutes, and for others on payment basis.
The Institute also has National Microbial, Nematode and Insect Collections and Conservation Facilities.
Right from the inception of the Institute when it established Herbarium Cryptogamae Indiae Orientalis (HCIO) with more than 6000 specimens and a National Pusa Insect Collection in 1905, which has more than 5 lakh insect specimens. Later on, an Indian Type Culture Collection of Fungi (1936) which has more than 3300 live fungal cultures, a National Collection of Nematodes (1969) and a National Rhizobial Collection (1986) were also established. These collections are national wealth and very useful resources for taxonomic studies. The Institute has also developed a National Facility for Conservation and Utilization of Blue Green Algae and Azolla.