On October 27, Dr. G. Hemaprabha took over as director of the ICAR Sugarcane Breeding Institute in Coimbatore. The Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare nominated her as the Institute's Director up to 2024 on the advice of the Agricultural Scientists Recruitment Board, New Delhi. Before this, she was the Director (Acting) of ICAR- Sugarcane Breeding Institute.
She is officially the Institute's first female Director in its 111-year existence. She has more than 34 years of work experience in performing research on sugarcane genetic improvement and is an ARS (Agricultural Research Service) member from the 1984 batch. She has so far created 27 distinct sugarcane cultivars and 15 genetic stocks for the plant.
Dr. Hemaprabha has done research on breeding and gene identification for climate resilience, standardization of genuine seed-based sugarcane agriculture, enhanced sugarcane varieties for tropical India, and marker-assisted selection and genomic selection in sugarcane. She has more than 350 publications with over 70+ research articles and 17 books registered in her name.
She has won numerous awards and recognitions, including the coveted NAAS Fellowship, DBT Nominee of the Institute Biosafety Meeting of Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, the Sir T.S. Venkatraman Award, The Society for Sugarcane Research and Promotion's Lifetime Achievement Award (National Academy of Agricultural Sciences) and many more.
The Co 0238 variety, which revolutionized sugarcane cultivation in North India and Co 11015, a much more famous short variety for South India, which is rapidly coming to the fore in Tamil Nadu, are some noteworthy examples.
Dr. Hemaprabha has made substantial contributions to the expansion of the genetic base, “Co” varieties and molecular markers, including DNA fingerprinting of superior sugarcane clones and true seed development.
