Cash Crops Genetic Diversity, Erosion, Conservation and Utilization

P. M. Priyadarshan

He is a prominent 
Hevea 
rubber breeder. He began his research career by breeding triticale and wheat while doing M.Phil and PhD degrees at the Chaudhary Charan Singh University, Meerut under the guidance of Prof. P.K. Gupta..  During the 1980s he focused on the 
in vitro
 culture of spices. He joined the Rubber Research Institute of India (Rubber Board, Ministry of Commerce, Govt. of India) as a Plant Breeder in 1990 and specialized in breeding 
Hevea
 rubber for sub-optimal environments. He was a visiting scientist at the Hardwood Tree Improvement and Regeneration Centre, Purdue University, U.S.A. In 2009, he became the Institute’s Deputy Director, and managed its Central Experiment Station until 2016.  He has been involved in breeding cereals, spices and 
Hevea
 rubber for 32 years. He is a reviewer of several international journals like Industrial Crops & Products, Tree Genetics and Genomes etc. He has published several research papers and chapters in journals and books of international repute like Advances in Agronomy, Advances in Genetics, and Plant Breeding Reviews. He has edited books on Breeding Plantation Tree Crops (Springer), Breeding Major Food Staples (Blackwell-Wiley), and the Genomics of Tree Crops (Springer). He also authored books on the Biology of 
Hevea
 Rubber (Springer) and on Plant Breeding: Classical to Modern (Springer).  

Shri Mohan Jain 

 He received M. Phil, 1973 and Ph.D., 1978, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India;. postdoctoral fellow in Israel, USA, and visiting scientist/Professor in Japan, Malaysia, Germany, and Italy. He worked in both academia and industry, and served as a Technical Officer, Plant Breeding and Genetics, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Vienna, Austria, 1999-2005. Dr. Jain is on the editorial Board of Euphytica, In Vitro, Propagation of Ornamental Plants; reviewer in Plant cell and organ culture, Plant cell reports, and few others. His publications are more than 165 in peer reviewed journals, book chapters, and conference proceedings, and edited 65 books; invited speaker and acted as a Chairperson in several international conferences worldwide.
 
He was awarded Nobel Peace Prize, 2005 in commemoration the awarding to IAEA of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2005, also former consultant to IAEA, the European Union, The Government of Grenada, Iranian date palm Company and the Egyptian Government.