The Department of Crop Physiology at the University of Agricultural Sciences,
GKVK, Bangalore was formally established in 1976 with the objectives of imparting
undergraduate and graduate programs in Crop Physiology and also to undertake
research in areas related to the physiology of crop plants. As the name of the
Department indicates, there was a clear intention to keep the interest of the
Department focussed on “crops” rather than “plants”.
Accordingly since its inception, the Department has strived to make its teaching
and research curricula to be increasingly crop physiology centric and be of
relevance to the overall science of crop productivity.
While the pendulum of the rain drop holds the country to ransom, efforts have been
on for the last few decades to gain some handle to reduce the consequences of the gamble of monsoon.
Any effort that could alleviate the problem of drought afflicting the majority of Indian agriculture
can change the face of India – from poverty to prosperity for her people. Towards this end,
the Department of Crop Physiology at the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore has been
striving in the past 30 years to comprehensively address the plant responses to stress.
The explicit aim of the program is to provide basic inputs that could be used in breeding
crop plants for tolerance to drought and other abiotic stresses. The efforts at the Department
have culminated in generating tomes of information on the response of plants to water stress,
identification of germplasm tolerant to moisture stress, understanding the physiological mechanisms
of tolerance and developing newer approaches towards breeding for or screening for drought tolerant crops.
These outputs have greatly enriched the understanding of plant responses to abiotic stresses and offer
a fertile field for taking up the challenging task of engineering plants for tolerance to abiotic stresses.
Based on the initial gains, the Department has set itself the vision to work on a mission mode in developing
crops tolerant to abiotic stresses including drought through advanced genetic engineering tools.
The Department is focusing on cloning novel genes that impart resistance to moisture stress.
Molecular characterization of the cloned genes using novel approaches such as virus induced gene silencing,
RNAi, development of genetic mapping for important traits such as water-use efficiency and root characteristics
and evaluation of transgenics for their resistance to moisture stress are being attempted.
It is hoped that these efforts will drive the momentum to free Indian agriculture from the clutches of drought.
In the process of achieving the task, the Department realizes that only way to sustain
this battle is to build an army of excellent human resources that will continue to
address the problem of stresses at large. Thus among the visions, the Department is
also aggressively emphasizing on developing the necessary conceptual and experimental
skills in students and young researchers. The training would lay a strong foundation
in developing the necessary human resource capability in the area in India.
In the quarter century of its existence, the Department has developed into a major national
centre for teaching and research in Crop Physiology. Over 175 and 50 students have been awarded
their Master’s and Doctoral degree respectively from the Department.
Most of the students of the department are well placed in either national or international
research institutions, state departments of agriculture and in the private sector and have
continued to exhibit high standards of performance and excellence.
The major research focus of the department has been in the areas of plant
stress physiology abiotic stresses like drought, salinity and high temperature,
canopy photosynthesis and physiology of water use efficiency, chemical
regulation of plant growth, genetic engineering for stress resistance,
nutrition bioprospecting and herbicide physiology. The research which has
been supported by a number of national and international funding agencies
and private sector institutions has led to significant conceptual and technological outputs.
The Department has pioneered the development of rapid and reliable techniques
for screening germplasm lines for tolerance to abiotic stresses.
Research into the stress responsive genes has lead to the identification
of novel stress responding genes responsible for imparting resistance to moisture,
salinity and high temperature stress. The Department houses the National
Facility for Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry (IRMS) and serves as a nodal centre
for all studies pertaining to the use of stable isotopes in biology.
Based on the performance in drought research the Department of Biotechnology,
Govt. of India sanctioned DBT-Centre for Drought Research in the year 2006 and
ICAR considered the Department of Crop Physiology as Niche Area for Drought Research.
The Department has a good mix of senior and junior faculty that combine the richness
of experience and enthusiasm. The department faces formidable challenges in the years to come,
both from the increasing demands of enhancing productivity of crops and from the radical
changes in the approaches to address these challenges. The Department is trying to keep pace
with the recent developments on these fronts.
