CeRA User-awareness workshop

CeRA User-awareness workshop organized at SUGARCANE BREEDING INSTITUTE

Dr Rameshwar Singh, Project Director, ICAR- Directorate of Knowledge Management in Agriculture (DKMA), New Delhi inaugurated the one-day J-Gate@CeRA User awareness workshop at ICAR - Sugarcane Breeding Institute (SBI), Coimbatore on 12 June 2015. Delivering the inaugural address, he said that CeRA has been successfully serving as an R&D information resource base for the Agricultural researchers of our country over the years.

Dr Rameshwar Singh, Project Director, ICAR-DKMA delivering the Inaugural address

 Urging the researchers of ICAR-Sugarcane Breeding Institute, ICAR-Central Institute for Cotton Research-Regional Station, ICAR- Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering-IEP and Tamil Nadu Agricultural University to make use of CeRA, Dr Singh mentioned that CeRA is the largest e-resource consortium in the country, after UGC-Infonet. The Document Delivery Request (DDR) is a unique feature of CeRA, he added.

Highlighting some of the new initiatives of CeRA such as trial access to Encyclopedia Britannica, JoVE and a few e-books, Dr Singh felt that research institutes should improve their Net connectivity to effectively utilize CeRA facility.

Dr.Bakshi Ram, Director of ICAR-SBI, Coimbatore in his Presidential address, complimented the efforts of CeRA in providing quick access to quality journals in the field of Agriculture. Appreciating the initiatives of ICAR-DKMA in showcasing the important technologies of ICAR, Dr Ram suggested that researchers should use the advanced search facility of CeRA for accessing information, rather than conducting searches through common search engines such as Google.

Dr Bakshi Ram, Director, ICAR-SBI delivering the Presidential address at the Workshop

Earlier, in his introductory remarks, Dr D Puthira Prathap, Principal Scientist & Officer In-charge, ICAR-SBI Library said that the discipline of Agricultural sciences has been immensely benefitted with the launch of CeRA in 2007. The high number of un-cited papers, which would come down with access to CeRA, has long plagued the discipline, he said. This is the fifth in the series of CeRA workshops conducted at SBI, since 2008, he informed.

Dr D Puthira Prathap, Officer In-charge, SBI Library addressing the participants of the Workshop

Dr.K.Sivaraman, Principal Scientist & Chairman, Library committee, ICAR-SBI proposed a formal vote of thanks and Dr R.S.Rana, In-charge, CeRA, New Delhi co-ordinated the Interactive session of the workshop.

            The workshop, conducted by Informatics India Ltd., Bangalore was attended by 100 participants.

Dr K Sivaraman, Chairman, Library Committee, SBI addressing the gathering

New Sugarcane Sett Treatment Device

New ‘Sett treatment device’ for treatment of sugarcane setts/buds for healthy nursery

 Sugarcane setts (seed material) are prone to infection by severe diseases like red rot, smut and other fungal diseases in the field after planting and it affects germination, growth and ultimately its yield of the crop. The normal practice recommended is to treat the setts by soaking overnight in solution of fungicides/ other solutions at recommended dosage by which the crop can be protected from infection from setts or soil.  However practical difficulties and handling huge volumes of setts and cost involved in this technique has not made it feasible for adoption by the farmers. With an aim to treat huge volume of setts/buds in shortest possible time, ICAR-Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Coimbatore developed a “Sett Treatment device” for treating the setts under reduced pressure in technical collaboration with ICAR-Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering Regional Centre, Coimbatore.

·         By using this equipment, the sett treatment is done in 10-15 minutes with more effective diffusion of the chemicals or bio-inoculum into the sugarcane setts / buds.

·         Since the same chemical can be reused, there is a huge savings in chemical used for pretreatment, thus making the system environmentally friendly, addressing the issue of optimized chemical use in agriculture.

·         In red rot, smut and wilt endemic areas, fungicide treatment through this "sett treatment device" will protect the crop from sett -borne and soil borne inoculum. Thereby the crop is free from the disease for 3-4 months.

·         Once the crop is protected in young stage the disease build up in the field is reduced and further course of fungicide can be delivered through drip system if available, to protect the crop from the dreaded diseases

·         The device can be used directly for field planting by sugarcane farmers or in single bud nurseries to raise healthy seedlings.

 

Based on the successful results obtained in the field trials conducted at SBI, Coimbatore and disease endemic locations with prototype model developed, scaled up model was developed . The scaled up model could be hitched to the tractor and transported to the sugarcane field, making it very convenient to use. The project has been funded by IDP group of Department of Science and technology, Government of India.

 Further Information:

Head, Division of Crop Protection

ICAR- Sugarcane Breeding Institute

Coimbatore - 641 007

rasaviswanathan@yahoo.co.in

Visit : www.caneinfo.nic.in