Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Coimbatore bags Sardar Patel Award

Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Coimbatore has been awarded the prestigious Sardar Patel Outstanding Institution Award of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research for the Year 2013. The award was received by Dr. N V. Nair, Director of the Institute from the Prime Minister Shri. Narendra Modi during the ICAR Foundation Day held in New Delhi on 29^th of July. The award instituted by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) carries cash reward of Rs. 10 lakhs and a citation. This National award is presented to the best performing Institute of ICAR based on its contribution to agricultural research.

Sugarcane Breeding Institute, one of the oldest Institutes under the ICAR fold with a history of over 100 years, had been in the forefront of sugarcane research in the country. The varieties developed by the Institute are being cultivated throughout the country and also in many Asian and African countries. Co 86032, the most popular sugarcane variety in tropical India occupying more than 1.2 million hectares, was developed by the Institute. This variety occupies nearly 90% of the area in Tamil Nadu and was responsible for improved cane production in the state. The other varieties from the Institute like Co- 89003, Co-0238 and Co-118 have predominant position in north India. The Institute has also developed various crop production technologies widely adopted by the farmers. The Institute maintains the largest germplasm collection of sugarcane in the world.

The institute is also engaged in frontier areas of research including molecular breeding, genomics and proteomics, gene discovery, sugarcane transgenics and geo-spatial technologies. The Institute is also into biofuel research and has developed energy-canes suited for biofuel applications. The research at the Institute is conducted by a team of nearly 70 scientists in different disciplines supported by an equal number of technical, administrative and support staff.

The Institute has one regional centre at Karnal, Haryana and two research centres in Kannur and Agali in Kerala to take care of the specific research needs.