Rice Improvement

Dr. Jauhar Ali is currently the Head of the Hybrid Rice Development Consortium and Leader for the Hybrid Rice Breeding Cluster in the Rice Breeding Platform at International Rice Research Institute. He is an agricultural graduate with honors in crop sciences from the prestigious Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana (India). He took his master’s (1990) and doctorate degrees (1993) in Plant Genetics from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. He did his post-doctoral fellowships at IRRI in 1994 and later between 2000-2003. He is a hybrid rice breeder, who has significantly contributed to the development and release of multiple-stress tolerant inbred (61 varieties) and 24 hybrid varieties, and capacity-building for strengthening global agricultural research. He has developed and characterized eight thermo-sensitive genic male sterile (TGMS) rice lines, for which he was awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for outstanding Ph.D. thesis research work in 1994. Using these materials led to the development of several TGMS-based hybrids involving different centers.  Also, he had been instrumental in the development of the Green Super Rice breeding technology at IRRI, being the project leader and regional coordinator of the Green Super Rice (GSR) Project in Asia and Eastern and Southern Africa.  For his immense contribution, he received the “Leadership” Award from the CAAS President in 2019. He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed publications.  He is currently the Academic Editor of PLoS One Journal and has reviewed more than 50 research articles from top research journals. Successfully, guided and mentored more than 33 (Ph.D., and MS) students and 14 (On-Job Trainees, Visiting Scientists, Visiting Research Fellows) at IRRI from different countries. He has also provided training to more than 2,100 researchers, especially on hybrid rice technology, seed production, and molecular breeding.​Dr. Shabir Hussain Wani is working as Scientist cum Assistant Professor (senior scale), Plant Breeding and Genetics at Mountain Research Centre for Field Crops, Khudwani, and SKUAST-Kashmir India. He received Ph.D. in plant breeding and genetics on “transgenic rice for abiotic stress tolerance” from the Punjab Agricultural University Ludhiana, India. He teaches courses related to plant breeding, seed science and technology, and stress breeding and has published more than 200 papers/chapters in journals and books of international and national repute. He served as guest editor and reviews editor for journal Frontier in Plant Science (2015-2018). He has also edited several books on current topics in crop improvement for abiotic stress tolerance published by Springer Nature and CRC press USA. He also served as visiting Scientist at Department of Plant Soil and Microbial Sciences, Michigan State University, USA under the UGC Raman Post Doctoral Fellowship programme. He has attended several international and national conferences, presenting his research.

• Advances in Genetics and Breeding of Rice: An Overview.- Strategies for Engineering Photosynthesis for Enhanced Plant Biomass Production.- Green super rice (GSR) traits: Breeding and genetics for multiple biotic and abiotic stress tolerance in rice.- Advances in two-line heterosis breeding in rice via the temperature-sensitive genetic male sterility system.- Growing rice with less water: improving productivity by decreasing water demand.- Crop establishment in direct-seeded rice: traits, physiology and genetics.- Genetics and Breeding of Heat Tolerance in Rice.- Genetics and Breeding of Low-temperature stress tolerance in rice.- Arsenic stress responses and accumulation in rice.- Molecular approaches for Disease Resistance in Rice.- Molecular approaches for insect pest management in rice.- Doubled Haploids in Rice improvement: Approaches, Applications and Future prospects.- Zinc-biofortified rice: a sustainable food-based product for fighting zinc malnutrition.- Biofortification of Rice Grains for Increased Iron Content.