Yet another gem in Pune research landscape

A few weeks ago Swapna Hedge from our Knowledge Economy team and I visited the Agharkar Research Institute (ARI) in Pune; a city surrounded by greenery and blessed with a salubrious climate and famous for its educational institutes, earning it the sobriquet “Oxford of the East”.

ARI is an autonomous institute of the Department of Science and Technology, established in 1946 as the Maharashtra Association for Cultivation of sciences. Later on, in 1992, due to its research extension it was renamed  to honor its founder Director, Late Professor S. P. Agharkar. The research and development activities of ARI span across all areas of life sciences, with three divisions: animal sciences, microbial sciences and plant sciences. The institute also carries out Postgraduate research (MSc and PhD) in biological sciences under University of Pune and Mahatma Phule Agricultural University (MPAU) affiliations.

The  institute building gave us a feel of British architecture and we were given a warm welcome by the Director and other faculty members. ARI has been one of the main research centers in India for improvement of crops such as soybean, wheat and grapes. There is also a 42 acre farm as part of the institute for experiments on crop plants and multiplication of improved seed varieties. Six soybean varieties have been released for cultivation in the central and southern zone of India, covering 7 states.

We learnt that the institute is also a major centre for development of high yielding, disease resistant and quality durum wheat as well as other wheat varieties for rain fed and irrigated conditions in Peninsular India, with seven varieties developed so far. Through hybridisation and mutation breeding processes, they have developed improved varieties of grapes with enhanced fruit quality, raisins, juice, and wine making capabilities. This variety is also disease resistant and has drought and salt tolerance. Due to time constraints we unfortunately didn’t have the opportunity to visit the laboratories but we got an overview of the work carried out there by speaking with scientists over some delicious snacks and hot beverages!

The nanobioscience and nanobiotechnology laboratory is probably the first laboratory in the country to license all its international and national patents to an industry and has established a nanotechnology incubator facility. The focus of this research is on the application of nanoscience and technology in biology, agriculture, medicine, environment and defense. The microbial division of ARI has developed technologies for the production of microbial products and thereby evaluating them for industrial application for which in house facilities are available. ARI has also been identified as the National Fungal Culture Collection of India (NFCII), a Centre of Excellence for Epigenetics.

Although the institute already has existing research links with the UK on a wheat project with University of Nottingham, there is a huge scope in the future for further research collaboration with the UK in areas such as developmental biology, probiotics, crop improvement and crop production under climatic stress.

The visit it was a memorable one although short. I look forward to seeing the outcomes of their probiotic research, especially the microbial process of converting non-extractable residual petroleum hydrocarbons from the spent oil reservoirs into easily extractable methane gas, which could be used as an alternative to fossil fuel. I intend to come back in the near future and visit their Baramati farmland to experience interesting field research.