The Crop Disease Research Institute (CDRI) has been playing a vital role in ensuring food security in the country by timely detecting wheat crop diseases through its state-of-the-art laboratory established in 1960.
The institute is a unique and first research facility in the country which played a key role in 1960s to bringing green revolution in Pakistan.
“The institute releases two to three new wheat varieties every year and so far over 100 wheat varieties has been released to increase disease resistance in the wheat crop which ultimately helps in enhancing wheat production with a minimum input cost,” Dr Javed Iqbal Mirza, principal scientific officer and in-charge of the institute, told media persons who visited the laboratory in Murree arranged by Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC).
He said the institute had helped in protecting wheat diseases, contributed to ensuring food security, sharing rust data, curtailing Ug99, collecting and testing wheat diseases samples, genetic stock analysis to identify gene having resistance.
He claimed that the institute was the only facility of its kind in the whole South Asian region which shares its research outcomes not only within the country but also with all agriculture scientists around the world which helps in curtailing the diseases in time and producing new disease resistant varieties.
“Not only Pakistani breeders and pathologists visit the institute in a bid to get training and to avail the lab facility but numerous international pathologists and scientists also visit the institute and stay here for as long as they wish,” he added.
He said these were the efforts of this institute that Pakistan had become self sufficient in wheat and the wheat growers were also benefitting by utilising the new varieties of wheat seed produced by the institute.
Dr Javed informed that the work had been started even before partition of Pakistan and India for the setup of this program.
Earlier, the group of journalists also visited Rawal Watershed Field Station at Satrameel and witnessed various research and development activities at the station.
Dr Ghani Akbar, senior engineer and project in-charge of the station, briefed that the station was one of the field sites of PARC that stretched over an area of 47 acres of land with 42 acres covered with forest trees and five acres covered with high value agriculture.
The station is frequently used for capacity building training, visits and field days.
