2nd ICAR Hailstorm Task Force Meeting Organized
21th November, 2015, Pune
The second task force committee meeting on Hailstorm Management was held at ICAR-NRC for Grapes, Pune on 21st November 2015.
Dr. AK. Sikka, DDG (Natural Resource Management) and chairman of the task force briefed the house with the background of task force initiation. He informed the magnitude of the hail frequency since last two years and briefed about the efforts of ICAR and NARES for managing hailstorm. He said Hail forecasting is a challenging task and lead-time of couple of hours will be an advantage and urged the IMD to look into that
Dr.N.Krishna Kumar, DDG (Horticultural Science) and chairman of the task force suggested the scientists to analyze hailstorm problems is a regular phenomenon and its intensity and area of occurrence. He told that data collection should be systematic and Institutes, universities, AICRPS must collect the data religiously.
Dr.B.Venkateswarlu, Vice Chancellor, Vasantrao Naik Marathwada Krishi Vidyapeeth, Parbhani in his address said that hail is no more an academic issue. During rabi major damage was observed in wheat, chickpea and sweet lime. He emphasized the need of collecting stage wise crop data.
Prof MC Varshneya, Vice Chancellor, Kamdhenu University, Gandhinagar explained that livestock and other sectors are also affected by Hailstorm equally and it is important to cover these sectors also in the proposed projects.Dr. P.S.Minhas, Director, ICAR-National Institue of Abiotic Stress Management, Baramati said drought and hailstorm are the major problems in Maharashtra. Besides forecasts, reduction in post harvest losses is another important task.
Dr. Ch Srinivasa Rao, Director, ICAR-Central Research Institute of Dryland Agriculture, Hyderabad and convener of the Task Force presented minutes of first task force meeting and briefed the agenda for the day's meeting.
Earlier, Dr. S.D. Sawant, Director, ICAR-National Research Centre for Grapes, Pune welcomed the delegates.
The meeting was attended by Directors of several ICAR institutes from Horticulture and Crop Science Divisions, Project Coordinators, senior officers from IMD, National Horticultural Board, State Agricultural Universities, farmer representatives and scientists.
(Source: ICAR-CRIDA and ICAR-NRC Grapes)
