THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Indian Council for Agricultural Research-Central Tuber Crops Research Institute (ICAR-CTCRI) and Indian Society for Root Crops will be jointly organising a two-day national conference on ‘Tropical Tuber Crops for Sustainability, Tradition, Agri-Food Systems & Resilience’ on November 28 and 29 at ICAR-CTCRI, Thiruvananthapuram, to commemorate the diamond jubilee celebrations of the institute. B Neeraja Prabhakar, vice-chancellor of Sri Konda Laxman Telangana State Horticultural University, will inaugurate the seminarICAR-CTCRI director Byju will preside over.
Indian Institute of Spices Research (IISR) director R Dinesh will be the guest of honour. The conference aims to understand the scope and importance of tropical tuber crops among various stakeholders, including researchers, farming community and policy makers.
Sessions on themes like biodiversity, genetic resources, and crop improvement; bioinformatics, AI and IoT applications; resource management and climate resilient farming; pests and diseases management are being planned.
The event will feature lead talks, oral presentations, and poster sessions, both by researchers and students, signing of MoU, release of three recently-developed bio capsules, release of disease diagnostic kits and publications, said T Makeshkumar, Division of Crop Protection head and conference organising secretary.