A food engineering research scholar from IIT Kharagpur has won the prestigious International Plant Nutrition Scholar Award.
- The award was recently given by the US-based International Plant Nutrition Institute to K Ashok Kumar, research scholar at the department of agricultural and food engineering, IIT Kharagpur.
- The award carries a cash prize of USD 2,000 and a recognition certificate.
- Mr Kumar has been pursuing his PhD at the department on nutrition management of rice-chickpea production system in laterite soil.
- The research will help application of organic fertiliser such as vermicompost in right amount and timing, to rice crop so that the yield of rice-chickpea cropping system is increased by 10 per cent as compared to use of conventional synthetic fertilisers.
- Further, the organic fertilser application would improve the nutritional and cooking quality of rice grain and chemical and biological properties of the acid lateritic soil.
International Plant Nutrition Scholar Award
- The International Plant Nutrition Institute (IPNI) Board of Directors offers two awards of interest to graduate students and scientists working in plant nutrition and management of crop nutrients and they are International Plant Nutrition Scholar Awards and IPNI Science Award.
- The International Plant Nutrition Scholar Awards are open to applicants who are graduate students and attending a degree-granting institution located in any country with an IPNI program. Priority is given to the relevance of the proposed research in support of IPNI’s mission.
- Students in the disciplines of soil and plant sciences including agronomy, horticulture, ecology, soil fertility, soil chemistry, crop physiology, and other areas related to plant nutrition are encouraged to apply for the award.
