Department Of Plant Breeding and Genetics

Plant Breeding and Genetics is taken as a core discipline in agricultural sciences. Plant breeding uses principles from a variety of sciences to improve the genetic potential of plants. The process involves combining parental plants to obtain the next generation with the best characteristics. Breeders improve plants by selecting those with the utmost genetic potential based on performance, pedigree and more sophisticated genetic information. Plants are utilized and improved for food, feed, fiber, fuel, shelter, landscaping, eco-systems services and a variety of other human activities.

The Department has six highly qualified Ph.D. faculty members, well acquainted with global experience for research and teaching, well equipped laboratories and sufficient number of acres, as an experimental farm for students and faculty research activities. The department is headed by Prof. Dr. Ijaz Rasool Noorka, who has a vast research experience and received Post Doctorate trainings from United Kingdom and global exposure, in various developed countries of the world.

A total of 900 acres’ land at new campus, having conventional and had planned, highly pressurized irrigation system, for irrigated and arid research, is available for students and faculty to meet the thirst for novel research. In experimental area of Plant Breeding & Genetics, different research experiments like crossing block designated for major crops, germplasm of cotton (exotic, wild and indigenous), and breeding material of wheat from CIMMYT have been planted for field evaluation and student research.

To nurture academic and research activities for undergraduate and postgraduate levels with following broad vision:

1. To plan and conduct basic and applied research in cotton, wheat, rice, maize, vegetables, oil seeds and pulse crops.
2. To develop linkages with private, provincial, national and global research institutions to undertake collaborative research projects.

The mission of the department is to serve as a vital link in the chain between farmers and consumers, with the aim for ensuring food security by developing new crop varieties that are higher yielding, disease resistant, drought tolerant or regionally adapted to different environments and growing conditions. The discipline, Plant Breeding and Genetics, occupies the biggest share in jobs advertisement by providing the trained agri-graduates for the public and private sectors like research institutions, biotechnological laboratories, and seed science & technology.