Welcome to AICRP-Sorghum
All-India Coordinated Research Project on Sorghum (AICRP on Sorghum) was established in December, 1969 with the main objective of conducting research on grain and forage sorghum improvement. Its coordinating unit was initially located at the main station of Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) at New Delhi, with 11 cooperating centers positioned in different states under State Agricultural Universities (SAUs). The cooperating centers are identified for multi-location testing of technology and products for sorghum improvement, besides contributing to sorghum research. The coordinating unit was shifted to IARI Regional Station, Hyderabad in 1970. More AICRP centres were added in the subsequent five year plans. The IARI regional station at Hyderabad was reframed as the National Research Center for Sorghum (NRCS) in 1987 and the AICSIP was integrated with this centre. NRC sorghum further elevated as the Directorate of Sorghum Research (DSR) in 2009 and Indian Institute of Millets Research (IIMR) in 2014. A research station was established in 1991 at Solapur (Maharashtra) to support the Rabi research activities. One off-season nursery facility was created in 1995 at Warangal, as a national facility to support AICRP researchers.
PC Message
Sorghum and other millets are very crucial to the world food economy because they contribute to household food security in many of the world’s poorest, most food-insecure regions. Sorghum is one of the most important cereal crops of India, cultivated in about 8 million hectares annually.
Sorghum is an important crop of resource poor, small and marginal farmers in semi-arid regions. The rainy season (kharif) sorghum grain is used both for human consumption and livestock feed and post-rainy season (rabi) produce is used primarily for human consumption in our country. Thus, it is the key for the sustenance of human and livestock population. However, the area under sorghum in India has declined drastically from 10.25 m ha in 1999-2000 to 5.82 m ha in 2014-15. The total production also declined from 8.68 m t to 5.39 m t. whereas, the productivity has increased from 847 kg /ha to 907 kg /ha during the same period mainly due to adoption of improved production technologies by the farmers.
- Grain sorghum breeding
- Forage sorghum breeding
- Sweet sorghum breeding
- Sorghum PGR management
- Sorghum physiology
- Sorghum agronomy
- Sorghum pathology
- Sorghum entomology
