ICAR- Directorate of Weed Research, Jabalpur celebrated its 35th Foundation Day on 22nd April, 2023. The programme was inaugurated by the chief guest of the function, Professor AK Pandey, Vice-Chancellor of Vikram University, Ujjain. In his remarks, he congratulated the Directorate for its achievements and carry out research work to manage weed menace for benefit of farmers and other stakeholders. He iterated that weeds not only harm the farming community by increasing production cost and decreasing quantity and quality of farm produce, but also causes problems for the other section of the society by creating physical disturbances in water bodies and various civic amenities. On the other hand, to conserve the biodiversity of the nature it must be managed in a scientific way. He emphasized more on weed utilization and expressed his happiness that the Directorate is working in this direction also. He also praised the biological weed control measures developed by ICAR-DWR and for releasing beetles in various locations to manage the menace caused by Parthenium and aquatic weeds. Dr. VA Tonapi, Ex Director ICAR-Indian Institute of Millet Research, Hyderabad delivered the Foundation Day lecture on “Environmentally sustainable production system through climate resilient millets”. He emphasized about importance of millets for nutritional security and encouraged the farmers to reintroduce millets in their cropping system not only for their domestic consumption, as well as for earning additional income as these grains are now being consumed by the high end of the society owing to their health concerns. He urged the scientist to come up with more and more options for economic and environmentally safe weed management measures for these crops.
Dr. PK Mishra, Vice-Chancellor of JNKVV, Jabalpur; Prof. RC Mishra, Vice-Chancellor of Mahakaushal University, Jabalpur, Dr. SRK Singh, Director, ATARI, Jabalpur and AH Saraswat, Registrar Mahakaushal University also graced the occasion as Guests of Honor at the event. They also praised ICAR-DWR’s role in developing and disseminating sustainable weed management strategies for the farming community for better food production and profitability. Dr. AK Gogoi, former Assistant Director General (Agronomy), ICAR, New Delhi and Chairman of Research Advisory Committee of this Directorate has graced the occasion through virtual mode. He expressed his admiration for ICAR-DWR glorious journey which started functioning as National Research Centre for Weed Science (NRCWS) at 1989 and was upgraded to DWSR in 2009 and subsequently renamed as ICAR-DWR in 2014. He urged that the young scientists to take up research work in team mode to face the new challenges. Earlier Dr. JS Mishra, Director, ICAR-DWR welcomed all the dignitaries and participants. He presented salient achievements of the Directorate and informed that besides standardizing chemical weed management technologies for several crops and cropping systems under both conventional and conservation agriculture; the Directorate has also developed some low-cost spraying tools. He also highlighted that the Directorate has initiated work on weed management under climate change scenario vis-à-vis on millets and natural farming. He also presented the report that, efficient weed management technologies can reduce yield loss and enhance farm profitability by more than 1.5-2 times.
On this occasion six publications relating to various aspects of weed science, one weed seed kit and one mobile app for identification of weeds were released. Total 8 progressive farmers who adopted and subsequently facilitated this Directorate to disseminate low-cost improved weed management technologies among the farming community were also felicitated to commemorate the occasion. To create a competitive and healthy working environment “Best Worker Awards” were given to employees of all categories on the basis of their performances during the reported period. The programme was organized in hybrid mode (physical and virtual both). All the employees of ICAR-DWR, Scientist’s from various AICRP-WM centres, Directors from different ICAR institutes, farmers and FPO’s took part during different events. Dr. PK Singh, Principal Scientist and Programme coordinator delivered the vote of thanks.
Read more: https://dwr.icar.gov.in/Show_Event.aspx?id=1502
