About the Conference

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In the recent years, the looming food scarcity problem has transformed agricultural sciences as an emerging discipline committed to devise new strategies for enhancing crop productivity to feed approximately 10 billion world's populations by the year 2050. The major factors causing food scarcity are biotic and abiotic stresses which substantially limit productivity and nutritional quality of crops world-wide. Changing climate further aggravates adverse effects of combined stresses and increase the losses. Aglobal survey on the major food crops indicated that pathogens, insect pests and weeds cause average yield losses ranging from 17-30% in crops. Likewise, the major abiotic stresses such as temperature extremes, salinity, drought, as well as the deficiency and toxicity of plant nutrients cause up to 51-82% annual loss of crop yield in the world. Often, the exposure of plants to pests or pathogens increase the effects of an abiotic stress(es) such as water deficit and higher temperature, whereas long-term abiotic stress can weaken plant defense and cause enhanced pathogen susceptibility. Despite this, only few reports in the literature have focused on understanding the interactive effects of biotic and abiotic stresses both in laboratory as well as under field conditions. In this scenario, novel strategies need to be adopted to achieve maximum productivity and economic crop returns under such adversaries. Some of the major strategies include pathogen/pest management practices, novel gene discovery, breeding of new crop varieties, high-throughput phenotyping, rapid diagnosis, screening and selection of crop gene pools, genetically modified (GM) crops, exogenous use of osmoprotectants and plant hormones, application of microbiome-based consortium (SynCom) on crops, identification of stresses through remote sensing and spectral signatures, agronomic and soil reclamation practices, sustainable use of available water supplies, use of artificial intelligence (AI) encompassing bioacoustics with machine learning in agriculture, etc. The above facts call for discovery, development and implementation of novel strategies involving all knowledge-linked climate smart tools to combat emerging challenges of biotic and abiotic stresses independently as well as together. Hence, the conference on “Novel Strategies for Mitigating Biotic and Abiotic Stresses for Agricultural and Environmental Sustainability” is proposed to identify major challenges of biotic and abiotic stresses, climate resilience challenges, developing diagnostics including use of artificial intelligence (AI), formulating strategies to address these issues to sustain future agriculture while ensuring nutritional security.

Invitation

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With immense pleasure, we cordially welcome you all to the conference on 'Novel Strategies for Mitigating Biotic and Abiotic Stresses for Agricultural and Environmental Sustainability' scheduled to be held during 28- 29 February, 2024 at ICAR-National Institute of Biotic Stress Management, Raipur, Chhattisgarh. This conference is being organized by National Institute of Biotic Stress Management (ICAR-NIBSM), Raipur in collaboration with Amity University Chhattisgarh (AUC), Raipur and National Institute of Abiotic Stress Management (ICAR-NIASM), Baramati. We are anticipating a successful event studded with keynote lectures, oral and poster presentations and discussion among the delegates spanning academia and industry in the field of biotic and abiotic stress management for agricultural and environmental sustainability. The field of mitigating stresses is growing very rapidly in response to the societal needs for safe technologies, drawing attention of researchers from a wide variety of research domains working together to bring benefits to the mankind. The goal of the conference is fostering knowledge and information sharing to evolve innovative strategies and cutting edge technologies to promote agricultural and environmental sustainability and nutritional security towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Conference Venues

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Day-1: (28th February 2024) - ICAR-National Institute of Biotic Stress Management,Raipur (NIBSM)

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Day-2: (29th February 2024) - Amity University Chhattisgarh, Raipur

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