Nauni/Solan: Two students of the College of Forestry of Dr. YS Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni have been selected for Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) fellowships.
Both the students, Neha Mishra and Jatin Kumar have completed their MSc and BSc degrees from the university.
Neha is pursuing her PhD in statistics, while Jatin is pursuing a doctorate in Agroforestry from the university. Both will be awarded a monthly scholarship of Rs 31,000 for the entire duration of their degree. In addition, they will also be paid Rs 20,000 as an annual contingency allowance for the duration of the PhD.
Jatin is working on the component interactions and their impact on the production and economic viability of fruit tree-based agroforestry systems in the dry temperate zone of the Himachal Himalayas. He is looking to study the influence of fruit tree and crop components on each other in terms of production, economics, and effect on soil and plant nutrient status of the system components in the dry temperate zone of HP.
Neha’s PhD topic is on the identification of stable varieties and a forecasting model for assessing climate change impact on apple yield and harvest losses in Himachal Pradesh. This study aims to find out the effectiveness of different commercial apple varieties for consistency under varied locations and a forecasting model will be developed for apple yield and disease incidence based on metric characters and weather parameters. Also, the vulnerability of apple crops to climate change will be assessed.
INSPIRE is an innovative program sponsored and managed by the Department of Science & Technology for the attraction of talent to Science. The basic objective of INSPIRE is to communicate to the youth of the country the excitements of creative pursuit of science, attract talent to the study of science, and thus build the required critical human resource pool for strengthening and expanding. the Science & Technology system and R&D base.
Vice-Chancellor Dr. Parvinder Kaushal, Dean Forestry Dr. Sanjeev Thakur and PhD guides of the students along with other faculty congratulated the students.
Recently, two doctorate students of the university also bagged prizes in Oral Presentation during the International e-conference on the Progress of Science and Technology during a pandemic organised by the Him Science Congress Association. Sunny Sharma, a doctorate student in Fruit Science bagged second prize in Oral Presentation while Umesh Sharma, a PhD student of Tree Improvement and Genetic Resources bagged the third prize.
