Seminar on Sustainability of Plants in the Era of Climate Change on 26/10/2016

Seminar on topic: "Sustainability of Plants in the Era of Climate Change " on 26/10/2016 by Dr. Renu Bhardwaj.

Botanical Society, P.G. Department of Botany, Khalsa College Amritsar organized one day seminar on “Sustainability of Plants In The Era Of Climate Change” on October 26, 2016. Dr. Renu Bhardwaj, who is serving as Professor in Department of botanical and Environmental Sciences, GNDU Amritsar was the main narrator in the seminar. Dr. Mehal Singh, Principal, Khalsa College along with Prof. Kirandeep Kaur, Head P.G. Dept. of Botany, welcomed the Dr. Renu Bhardwaj and other guests. DrMehal Singh stressed on the need of such important talks for knowledge enhancement of students.

Dr. Bhardwaj mentioned the role of climate change on Indian agriculture. Plants are inevitably exposed to various environmental stresses, she added. In particular, abiotic stresses such as temperature (heat, chilling, and freezing), water (drought, water logging), salt, heavy metals, light (intense and weak), radiation (UV-A/B) etc. are serious threats to agriculture worldwide. To survive such stresses, plants have evolved many intricate defense mechanisms to increase their tolerance and survive under such extreme environmental conditions. Dr. Bhardwaj also mentioned the role of plants in such adverse conditions. As a class of plant polyhydroxysteroids, Brassinosteroids (BRs) exist ubiquitously in plants. BRs play important roles in a wide range of developmental processes in plants, including seed germination, root growth, floral initiation and flowering. There is emerging evidence demonstrating that BRs also participate in the response of plants to biotic and abiotic stresses. For instance, exogenous application of BR ameliorates the inhibitory effect of salt stress on seed germination and seedling growth of Arabidopsis and Brassica napus. Prof. Kulbir Kaur, Dr. HeminderSimgh, Dr. NavkiranRandhawa, Dr. Harjinder Singh, Dr. Madhu, Dr. P.K. Ahuja& Dr. Rajbir Singh were present on the occasion.