A National webinar was conducted on Interventions of Biotechnology in Agriculture, with a theme of in vitro micro-propagation of commercially important crops like Bamboo, Banana, Gerbera, Sugarcane, and many more ornamental, aromatic and herbal plants on 29th June, 2021, organised by Department of Biotechnology, MS Swaminathan School of Agriculture, Centurion University of Technology and Management, Paralakhemundi, Odisha. The webinar was blessed with the presence of the Chief Guest, Dr. N. Barathi, Founder Director, Growmore Biotech Ltd, Hosur, Tamil Nadu. He has a rich experience profile with multitudinous crucial roles, including former Agriculture Scientist in Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, Commission committee member for High-tech Horticulture, and Director of a Tissue Culture Lab of the capacity 10-100 lakhs plants/annum. He has successfully micro-propagated 85 different species of plants via tissue culture and exports the produce to more than 30 countries. Currently, he is leading the Growmore Biotech Ltd. producing around 11 million bamboo plants per year and his focusing on use of bamboo for generation of electricity and other bamboo produces, like bioethanol.
In this webinar more than 230 number of participants were registered and attended the webinar online, including, students of agriculture all over India, stake holders, faculties, scientist, private entrepreneurs etc. The programme provided an opportunity to faculty members, research scholars, post-graduate and under-graduate students to enrich their theoretical knowledge and research-cum-entrepreneurial aptitude by the lecture session of the eminent speaker. The aim of this webinar was to provide current scenario and future opportunity of tissue culture in field of agriculture research, production, and entrepreneurship.
Presentations
Interventions of Biotechnology in Agriculture
(Theme: In vitro micro-propagation of commercially important crops like Bamboo, Banana, Gerbera, Sugarcane, and many more ornamental, aromatic and herbal plants)
Dr. Dr. N. Barathi, Founder Director, Growmore Biotech Ltd, began the webinar with an introductory presentation, first explaining briefly about his past experience and his transitional journey, from research to production, and then, from production to entrepreneurship. Subsequently, he briefed on the tissue culture basics and approaches for a successful tissue culture practice. Later, he explained the purpose of micro-propagation in tissue culture and how to generate the multiple true copies of a pedigree plant via cloning. Interestingly, he shared his inventions during his tissue culture journey, like development of the in-house tissue culture containers (for growing plants) and the vertical plant growing area (the sun-light room) that not only cut downed the material and consumable costs, but also increased the production. Later on his presentation, he emphasized on how bamboo can be the next disruptive technology to dominate the times to come. This was followed up with an enlightening report on the production of bamboo-based fuels, and how our over dependency on fossil fuels can be curbed with the help of bamboo production. Dr. Barathi concluded his presentation by highlighting the applications of micro-propagation of bamboo and bamboo-based produces, including renewable energy and apparels for environmental security, livelihood sustainability, and economic significance. He encouraged the webinar participants to explore more in the area of commercial tissue culture production and to be successful entrepreneurs.