In conversation with sugarcane seed farmers..(Video in Tamil)
விதைத் திட்ட விவசாயிகளுடன் ஒரு கலந்துரையாடல்
100 Glorious years of Sugarcane Breeding Institute
Thursday, 18 February 2021
Soil Moisture Indicator
(Developed by ICAR-Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Coimbatore. Device designs (4 nos.) of SMI ,registered with The Controller General
of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks, The Patent Office, Government of India
under The Designs Act, 2000 and the Designs Rules, 2001)
List of licensees
- KSNM MARKETING, SF No. 29/1B, Ona Palayam,, Vadavalli to Thondamuthur Road,, Coimbatore Tamil Nadu 641 109, India,, http://www.ksnm.co.in/,, Phone: 93632 61175, 93603 88900, Email: info@ksnm.in.
Wednesday, 6 January 2021
Call for Papers
CaneCon - 2021
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SUGARCANE RESEARCH
Sugarcane for Sugar and Beyond
19-22 June 2021
Venue: Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Coimbatore- 641 003. India
Organizers:
- ICAR-Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Coimbatore, India
- Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, India
- Society for Sugarcane Research and Development, Coimbatore
Important Dates:
Last date for submission of extended summaries : 30 APRIL 2021Last date for early bird registration : 30 APRIL 2021
Visit: https://sugarcane.icar.gov.in/index.php/en/canecon-2020 for details.
Download Second Circular of CaneCon-2021 here.
********************
Thursday, 26 November 2020
National Water Award for Scientists of ICAR-Sugarcane Breeding Institute!
National Water Award for Scientists of ICAR-Sugarcane Breeding Institute
A team of scientists from ICAR-Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Coimbatore, Dr
K. HARI, Dr D. PUTHIRA PRATHAP, Dr P. MURALI, Dr A. RAMESHSUNDAR and Dr B.
SINGARAVELU has been awarded the FIRST
Prize in the National Water Awards-2019 for their work on “Soil Moisture Indicator (SMI) and
its application in irrigation water management” in the Best Research/
Innovation/ adaptation of New Technology for Water Conservation category by
Ministry of Jal Shakti, Department of Water Resources, river development &
Ganga rejuvenation, Government of India. Hon’ble Vice President, Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu
inaugurated the Award Distribution Ceremony of National Water Awards, 2019 on
11-12 November 2020 in the august presence of Union Minister of Jal Shakti,
Shri Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and Minister of State for Jal Shakti, Shri Rattan
Lal Kataria, which was streamed online.
‘Cost effectiveness of the innovation’, ‘replicability of the technology’ and ‘increase in water-use efficiency’ were the criteria on which the award applications were evaluated. The award carries a Cash prize of Rs.2 lakhs and a citation.
The scientists had developed a user-friendly, simple device
named as ‘Soil Moisture Indicator’ (SMI), which helps the farmers to assess
soil moisture levels while scheduling irrigations, thus ensuring considerable
saving of irrigation water.
In most of the farmers’ fields, particularly in sugarcane
fields, efficient irrigation management practices such as
irrigation-scheduling, based on soil moisture status are rarely in practice. In
an effort to save water and to facilitate irrigation-scheduling, this handy,
electronic moisture – indicating device was developed in participatory mode,
said Dr. K. Hari, Principal Scientist and principal inventor.
This
soil moisture indicator has been designed to objectively indicate the soil
moisture status in the soil and can work on a variety of soil types. It works
based on the principle that electrical conductivity of the soil is directly
proportional to soil moisture or soil electrical resistance is indirectly
proportional to soil moisture content. When conventional irrigation method was
followed, a sugarcane yield of 55.8 tonnes/acre/year was obtained, as against
60.4 tonnes/acre/year, obtained by following SMI-driven irrigation scheduling,
he added.
Initially
a prototype of SMI was developed and tested under various levels of soil
moisture conditions in farmers’ fields of five districts of Tamil Nadu
(Dharmapuri,
Krishnagiri, Cuddalore, Erode & Coimbatore) belonging
to three
agro-climatic zones, and a refined version was
launched during 2010, said Dr D Puthira Prathap, Principal Scientist and
Co-Inventor. Women farmers were also involved in evaluating the device. Through
the participatory action research project, it was found that sugarcane farmers
could conserve about 15% of irrigation water by saving about six irrigations
following SMI-driven irrigation scheduling, Dr. Prathap added.
(Watch FPARP Video film hereunder)
The scientist-team informed
that considering the versatility of the technology, several ICAR-KVKs (Farm
Science Centres) had demonstrated its use in different crops such as groundnut,
brinjal, bhendi, coconut, banana, paddy, sesame, black gram, green gram, tomato
and mustard besides sugarcane. It had also found a place in the Union Ministry
of Agriculture’s publication – New
steps, progressive steps: A glimpse of PM’s achievements. State
Governments viz., Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Telangana have already included
the soil moisture indicator for purchase and distribution to farmers and other
stakeholders under various schemes. It is also noteworthy that the Agriculture
Skill Council of India and National Skill Development Corporation have included
this in the National Occupational Standard of a Sugarcane Cultivator. At
present the unit price of the device is around Rs. 1,500/-, the team added.
Dr Bakshi Ram, Director of ICAR-Sugarcane Breeding Institute highlighted that, with the fast depletion of water resources in agriculture being a serious cause of concern, widespread use of versatile devices such as Soil Moisture Indicators would go a long way in achieving the objective of obtaining ‘More crop and income per drop of water” resulting in sustainable gains to farmers across the country.
While
congratulating the multi-disciplinary team of scientists, Dr Bakshi Ram stated
that using such devices across the country would ensure huge benefits
in terms of conserving water and reducing drudgery while saving money and
electricity. Twelve firms from the
states/UTs of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Chandigarh, Madhya Pradesh,
Uttar Pradesh and Telangana have been granted licence for commercial production
of SMI. Further information is available at https://sugarcane.icar.gov.in/index.php/en/home/1157-soil-moisture-indicator
and https://caneinfo.icar.gov.in/Gallery/SMI%20web%20bulletin%20for%20CaneInfo.pdf
, Dr Bakshi Ram added.
===============================================
Tuesday, 8 September 2020
Tuesday, 11 August 2020
ICAR-Sugarcane Breeding Institute organizes Webinar
Webinar on ‘Combating post COVID-19 challenges in the sugarcane sector through appropriate technologies and approaches’
The ICAR-Sugarcane Breeding
Institute, Coimbatore organized a webinar on ‘Combating post-COVID-19
challenges in the sugarcane sector through appropriate technologies and
approaches’ on 25 June 2020.
Inaugurating
the webinar, Smt. Reeta Harish Thakkar IAS, Commissioner of Sugar, Government
of Tamil Nadu and Managing Director, Tamil Nadu Sugar Corporation, said that
this webinar is a welcome initiative from ICAR-Sugarcane Breeding Institute.
Since the day lockdown was announced in March, many sugar factories in the
state have been operating with only 30-40% of capacity utilization. The
Government of Tamil Nadu has been taking several steps to revive the sugar
sector such as providing transport subsidy @ Rs.100/ton of cane, disbursement
of NADP subsidy amount and extending the production subsidy and
micro-irrigation scheme under PMKSY (Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana)
for 2020-21 as well.
Dr
Bakshi Ram, Director of ICAR-Sugarcane Breeding Institute in his opening
remarks remarked that both the sugarcane farmers and the sugar mills have been
suffering during the COVID-19 crisis. Mentioning that this webinar has been
structured in such a way that the sharing of knowledge would help in overcoming
the post pandemic challenges; he informed that the webinar was being held to
cover the following topics:
- Challenges of Human Resource Management
in Sugarcane Agriculture and Sugar Industry: Issues such as
manpower requirements for cane cultivation and for a sugar factory,
decreasing trend of agricultural labour availability, challenges of
agricultural workforce during COVID-19, inter-state movement of farm
labour, risk mitigation strategies and modification of the work-flow
process to suit the present conditions were emphasized.
- Sugarcane agriculture: Combating
challenges in the post-COVID-19 scenario – Assumptions pertaining to the post
COVID-19 scenario, Short-term and long-term impacts and mitigation
strategies at the research and extension levels were discussed.
- Responding to mechanization
challenges in the post-pandemic
period:
Issues such as acute scarcity of farm labour, escalating cane harvest
charges, reduction in cost of cultivation due to mechanization, merits of
wider row spacing, varietal preferences, weed management, intercropping
issues, custom-hiring of implements and promoting entrepreneur models were
highlighted.
- Sugar market : Challenges and responses
post-COVID-19: Global, National and state-level sugar production, sugar consumption
pattern, Revenue sharing formula Vs Fair and remunerative price and impact of COVID-19 on the sugar market
were discussed.
- Challenges and opportunities for
Micro-irrigation in sugarcane: Issues such as improving cane yield and quality
in micro-irrigated plots, persisting lack of adoption among farmers,
assistance from the government-side, lack of awareness on irrigation
scheduling and problems in system maintenance were shared.
- Emerging sugarcane pests and diseases: Solutions for Pokkah
boeng disease and for pests in sugarcane such as leaf mite, mealy bug and
white grub were discussed.
The
distinguished speakers at the webinar were Shri M Silvester, Kothari Sugars and
Chemicals Ltd., Shri S.J. Lakshman, EID Parry (I) Ltd., Shri K Nagendran,
Sugarcane specialist, Shri R Varadarajan, Rajshree Sugars & Chemicals Ltd.,
Shri N Sezhian, Jain Irrigation Systems Ltd. and Dr R Viswanathan,
ICAR-Sugarcane Breeding Institute.
Over
660 participants from 19 states of the country and 5 foreign
countries had registered and participated. The webinar was held for over
five hours and was moderated by Dr D Puthira Prathap, Principal Scientist of
ICAR-Sugarcane Breeding Institute.
The
final event of the webinar was the Q&A session. Over 100 questions on the post COVID-19
issues pertaining to the sugarcane sector were posed by the participants out of
which a few were answered by each speaker during the session. A compilation of
the complete Q&As would be carried out for wider distribution among the
participants.
While
proposing a vote of thanks from the industry side to the Institute, Shri S.J.
Lakshman appreciated the efforts of the ICAR-SBI in providing solutions to
various problems faced by the industry and the farmers. He specially mentioned
about the two recent initiatives of the institute viz. quality seed production
under farmers participatory programme and releasing the short duration
sugarcane variety Co 11015, which will help the sugar industry in the long run.
==============================================
Friday, 27 September 2019
Launch of Online Journal of Sugarcane Research
The President,
office bearers and members of
Society
of Sugarcane Research and Development (SSRD),
Coimbatore
Cordially invite you
to the
Launch function of
Online Journal of Sugarcane Research
On Friday, October 4, 2019 at 10.00 hrs.
Dr. Bakshi Ram
President, SSRD & Director, ICAR-SBI
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