Directorate of Research

About the Directorate

The Directorate of Research was established in November 2013. There are seven research stations encompassing three agro-climatic zones under the administrative control of Directorate of Research, SKNAU, Jobner. These include Rajasthan Agricultural Research Institute (RARI) at Durgapura, Jaipur, two Agricultural Research Stations located at Navgaon (Alwar) and Fatehpur-Shekhawati (Sikar) and four Agricultural Research Sub-Stations at Tabiji (Ajmer), Kumher (Bharatpur), Gonera - Kotputli (Jaipur) and Diggi (Tonk). Rajasthan Agricultural Research Institute, Durgapura is the main Agriculture research station of the University. There are 17 short and long term AICRP and AINP projects operating in Directorate of Research. The research grant mainly comes from ICAR & matching grant from the state govt. in proportion of 75:25. Out of these 17 projects, twelve are operating at Rajasthan Agricultural Research Institute, four at SKN College of Agriculture, Jobner and one at ARS Fatehpur-Shekhawati. The research is being conducted on most of the crops, fruits, vegetables and other crops suitable for this region. About 879.43 ha land is available in different units of the University to conduct research and for seed production.

Mandates

• Basic, strategic and anticipatory research in field and horticultural crops for enhanced productivity and quality.

• Research in frontier areas to develop resource use efficient integrated crop management technologies for sustainable agricultural production system.

• Breeding and evaluation of new crop varieties and hybrids in wheat, barley, pearlmillet, groundnut, pulses, and seed spices for the zones of SKNAUSA.

• Development of low cost agro-technologies for agricultural and horticultural crops and cropping systems.

Objectives

• To plan, coordinate and monitor the Agroclimatic zones need oriented agricultural research

• To develop appropriate production technologies for sustainable production

• To develop linkages with national and international organizations for research and various current aspects

• To extend consultancy services.

Research setup

The territorial jurisdiction and responsibility of this University extend to the districts of Jaipur, Sikar, Alwar, Dausa, Tonk, Ajmer, Bhartpur and Dholpur which comprises about 16 percent geographical area of the state. Agricultural research needs time bound solutions of emerging challenges, while re-orient strategy as multidisciplinary approach to develop the technology which is climate resilient, acceleration of technology development with use of modern biotechnological tools, to minimize the post –harvest losses, provide balanced nutrition through accelerated green fodder production to live stocks, use of modern agro-meteorological and remote sensing tools, and integrating conservation/organic farming. University jurisdiction covers three agro-climatic zones of the Rajasthan.

• Plain of inland drainage (IIA)

• Semi-arid eastern plain zone (IIIA)

• Flood prone eastern plains (IIIB)

Land Resources

The land area is available at different research units of SKNAU, Jobner for research experiments and production of quality seed is as follows:

The major crops of the state, viz, Wheat, Barley, Pearl Millet, Chickpea, Mungbean, Moth bean, Cowpea, Groundnut, Cluster bean, Mustard, Taramira, Seed Spices and majority of vegetable crops are grown in the regions under jurisdiction of the university. Thus, the three agro climatic zones under the jurisdiction of the university have potential to address the needs of the state with respect to food crops, vegetables and seed spices.

At present 17 ICAR funded All India Coordinated Research  Projects (AICRPs ) and the State Government  funded long term projects  are  already  in  vogue  and  dedicated   to the  needs  of  the three zones along with several ad-hoc  projects sponsored  by  various prestigious funding agencies . Besides the basic mandates, the Directorate is on its way to finalize newer mandates in light of the State Agricultural Policy of the Dept of Agriculture, GOR and new frontier areas of R & D in agriculture covering various aspects of Precision Agriculture, Conservation Agriculture, Secondary Agriculture and Specialty Agriculture etc.

Profile of Director with picture

 
Dr. Narendra Kumar Gupta, Director Extension, SKN Agriculture University, Jobner  completed his M.Sc. (Ag.) from Rajasthan Agricultural University, Bikaner and Ph.D. from prestigious IARI, New Delhi. He has been the recipient of University Gold Medal for outstanding academic performance in M.Sc. (Ag) Plant Physiology. He started his professional career as Assistant Professor (Plant Physiology) at SKN College of Agriculture, Jobner, Rajasthan in 1996 and rose to the level of Professor in 2011.
Dr. Gupta is mainly working on plant carbon assimilation, metabolism and utilization at molecular level as well physiological screening of crops for abiotic stress tolerance at field level. He has made significant contribution in generating external funding through adhoc projects from ICAR, RKVY, ISM& H and other agencies. He received first ICAR-CAFT on Plant Biotechnology to the University and thus contributing in capacity building in the field of plant biotechnology through organizing trainings and delivering lectures to train the young scientists.
Dr. Gupta has earlier been bestowed with DBT overseas Assocciateship -2005 to work at University of Adelaide, Australia and ICAR-NAIP traing fellowship to work at UNL, Lincoln, USA in 2013. He has offered to serve as Visiting Professor at University of Mauritius in 2015. He has received J.J. Chinoy Gold Medal Award 2019 for his outstanding contribution in Plant Physiology. In 2020, he received Dr. R. S. Paroda Best Scientist Award for his outstanding contribution in agriculture among all the State Agricultural Universities of Rajasthan.
Dr. Gupta has guided 14 PG students. He has authored many books including “Fundamentals of Crop Physiology” and “Fundamentals of Plant Biochemistry and Biotechnology”. Recently he has edited a book “Multiple Abiotic Stress Tolerances in Higher Plants” published from CRC Press, New York.  He has published 80 research papers in different national and international journals gaining H-index 20 and I-index 28. Earlier, he has been awarded with Fellowships from PROM Society, Udaipur (2014), Indian Society for Plant Physiology, New Delhi (2016) and Indian Society for Arid Horticulture (2022).

Dr. Gupta has also served as Dean, College of Agriculture, Navgaon, Alwar (Aug 2019-Jan 2020) and Controller of Examination, SKN Agriculture University (Feb 2020 – Jan 2021) before joining on the post of Director, Education.

Staff Details

S. No.	Name of the Scientist	Designation	Email ID
1	Dr. Roshan Choudhary	Dy. Director Research	roshan.agro@sknau.ac.in

Details of former Directors 

S. No.	Name of the Director	From	To
1.	Dr. K. Ram Krishna	13.11.2013	06.01.2015
2.	Dr. N.K. Sharma	07.01.2015	06.10.2015
3.	Dr. (Mrs.) Neelam Yadav	07.10.2016	01.07.2016
4.	Dr. V.K. Yadav	02.07.2016	31.07.2019
5.	Dr. A.K. Gupta	31.07.2019	03.07.2020
6.	Dr. M.L. Jakhar	04.07.2020	07.06.2023
7.	Dr. B.L Kakraliya	07.06.2023	Dec 2023
8.	Dr M.L. Jakhar	Dec 2023	Oct 2024

Seed Productions:

Breeder seed Production (q)