PAU is a widely acclaimed farm university and has immensely contributed in meeting the food requirements of the country. It has pioneered the green revolution in India in 1960s. In view of the remarkable impact of new technologies on Punjab's agriculture and the national food security, PAU has been rightly referred to as the mother of green revolution in India. The university made landmark achievements in the development of improved crop varieties and their production-protection technology package, saline-alkaline soil reclamation technology, cropping-system and agro-ecology based input application, etc. Besides crop science, PAU has remarkable contribution to its credit for cross-breeding of cattle, introduction of Italian honeybee and mushroom cultivation.

LANDMARK RESEARCH ACHIEVEMENTS

Outstanding Achievements of Punjab Agricultural University (2016-17)

Developed/released 21 varieties/hybrids of field and horticultural crops, 39 production-protection technologies, 5 post-harvest/processing technologies and 6 farm machines.

Outstanding achievements are:

• Joint Inter-state campaign led by PAU was organized for management of whitefly in cotton (Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan). It resulted in bumper cotton crop with record productivity 756 kg/ha and saving of pesticides worth Rs. 54.42 crore (Rs. 2162/ha).
  • Developed multipurpose high clearance sprayer and Auto rotating gun type sprayer for control of whitefly and other pests in wider row crops.
• Developed Modified Happy Seeder and a Super SMS attachment with harvest combine for paddy straw management.
• Developed 3 ton capacity Portable Maize Dryer.
• Developed short duration high yielding rice variety PR 121 (110 days after transplanting) which emerged as the most popular variety (occupied 29% parmal area in 2016).
  • The parmal yield increased from 6291 kg/ha during 2015-16 to 6562 kg/ha during 2016-17.
• ICAR approved 3 Bt cotton entries and asked for submission of release proposal for notification. Out of these, 2 belong to PAU (PAU Bt 1 and F 1861). So PAU is going to be number one in varietal development of Bt cotton.
• Collaborated with Gujarat State Seed Corporation and developed cotton LHH 144 Bt hybrid which will be evaluated during 2017.
  • Started breeding of Bt cotton varieties/hybrids under MoU with Delhi University, and GM cotton having whitefly resistance under MoU with National Botanical Research Institute.
• Developed yellow rust resistant version of wheat PBW 343 (PBW 723) and first zinc biofortified wheat variety (PBW 1Zn). Both these varieties have been released by ICAR for cultivation in North Western Plains Zone (Punjab, Haryana, UP, Rajasthan).
• Developed sugarcane variety CoPb 92 (sucrose content comparable to CoJ 64) which has been identified by ICAR for cultivation in North West Zone (UP, Uttranchal, Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan).
• Developed first variety of celery (Punjab Celery 1).
• Two varieties of rajmash are under last stage of evaluation (farmers field trials).
• Developed carotene rich cherry tomato varieties (Yellow and Orange) suitable for protected cultivation.
• Signed MoU with Maharashtra State Seed Corporation for hybrid maize seed production.
• Strengthened research and production of consortium biofertilizers. Supplied culture for 52,000 acres of wheat and other crops compared to 12,000 acres during 2015.
• More than 10,000 soil health cards have been prepared and distributed among the farmers to promote soil test based nutrient application
• Advising 1,45,000 farmers through mobile and e-mail services. Publishing monthly farm magazines i.e. Changi Kheti and Progressive Farming (2,28,000 copies published during 2016).
• Two faculty members (Dr. Kuldeep Singh and Dr. Gulshan Mahajan) became NAAS (National Academy of Agricultural Sciences) Fellow (the total number of Fellowship is 28).
• Indian Society of Genetics and Plant Breeding, New Delhi honoured various Institutions for development of landmark varieties wherein PAU occupied 1^st position (GBPUA&T, Pant Nagar at 2^nd and IARI (Pusa), New Delhi at 3^rd position).
• Got three Prime Minister Fellowships awarded by DST, GOI (the total number of fellowship is 100)
• Got four outstanding Ph.D Thesis Awards.
  • Two ICAR - Jawahar Lal Nehru for outstanding Doctoral Thesis Research Award. (Total number of awards is 18).
  • One Fertilizer Association of India for outstanding Doctoral Research in Fertilizer Use. One best Ph.D Thesis Award by Society of Pesticide Science.
• Got one Monsanto Beachell Borlaug Fellowship (this fellowship was started in '2008 and so far 24 fellowships have been awarded to Indian students out of which 8 were awarded to PAU students)
• Mr. Prasun Kramakar secured 1^st rank in ICAR's All India Competitive Examination-SRF (PGS)-2016
• Two Indian agricultural institutes (IARI and PAU) among the top 300 world universities in ranking done by National Taiwan University (2016).
• PAU tops among all Indian Agricultural Universities for quality research publications - Indian Citation Index New Delhi (2014).