Dr Ravinder Kumar

Scientist Profile

Research interests and current focus

Development of improved sugarcane varieties for subtropical India, integrating high yield, high sugar content, and resistance to diverse biotic and abiotic stresses.
Identification of water logging tolerant sugarcane genotypes suitable for Eastern UP and Bihar.
Production of high-quality breeder seed of Karnal bred “Co” sugarcane varieties, utilizing tissue culture, settling production, and a participatory farmer approach for rapid multiplication of superior varieties.
Evaluation of pre-breeding germplasm under subtropical climates

Membership in professional societies

Life member of the Society for sugarcane research and development (SSRD)
Life member of the Indian Society of Genetics and Plant Breeding (ISGPB)

List of current external funded project

C1-07/6-1-21. ICAR Seed project – Seed production in agricultural crops and fisheries – sugarcane (continuous project under RFS, Karnal) (as PI)
C1-18/6-1-22. Healthy seed production and mechanization of sugarcane agriculture-A farmer’s participatory initiative (RKVY Raftaar Haryana) (from 2018-2025, ; Sanctioned amount 132.33 lakhs (As PI)

Patent Details

Quatro Sugarcane single bud cutter is a cost effective single budded sett cutting tool which begged design patent in the country “Design No. 297432″

Awards and honours

Best Scientist Award – ICAR-SBI: ICAR-SBI Foundation Day award 2020 for the outstanding contribution at ICAR SBI, Coimbatore, under the scientific category of the institute on 31^st Dec
Received the “Certificate of Appreciation” on 31 Dec 2020 from the Director, ICAR-SBI, Coimbatore for an extraordinary duty during the Covid lockdown period 2020.
STAI Silver Medal award awarded by the sugarcane technologist association of India (STAI) for the research paper “Co 15023, a newly developed early maturing variety, potential substitute of Co 0238: Performance at Institute, AICRP and Factory Trails” The award was announced and given during 80^th STAI Annual Convention and International Sugar Expo held at Goa during July 28-29, 2022.
Best Oral award: Ravinder Kumar, R. Meena, Pooja, M. L. Chhabra and S. K. Pandey, has been awarded best oral paper award for oral presentation “Screening and identification of genetically diverse winter tolerant sugarcane clones for sub-tropical India” in the ISPP (Indian Society of Plant Physiology) North Zonal national Seminar 2022 on “Inter-Disciplinary Research Strategies for Climate Resilient Agriculture,” held on 25th June, 2022 at ICAR-Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Regional Centre, Karnal, Haryana, India.
Received “Reviewer Excellence Award” by ARCC Journal as reviewer of Indian Journal of Agricultural Research for significant contribution in reviewing of the articles during 2020.
Received “Certificate of excellence in reviewing” award by Internation Journal of Plant & Soil Science in recognition of an outstanding contribution to the quality of the journal for year 2021.
Received “Reviewer Excellence Award” by ARCC Journal as reviewer of Agricultural Reviews for significant contribution in reviewing of the articles during 2022.
Awarded first Prize by Nagar Rajbhasha Karyanyavan Samittee (Ministry of Home, Rajbhasha Department, GOI), at ICAR-NDRI, Karnal to the Hindi phamplet “Ganne ki unnat kismeh-01/2020” (2019-20) published by M. R. Meena, Ravinder Kumar, Bakshi Ram and SK Pandey.
Received “Certificate of appreciation” for serving as Co-Convener of the lead oral session – Theme: Sugarcane Improvement- Conventional Breeding lead oral in the “International Conference on Sugarcane Research: Sugarcane for Sugar and Beyond (CaneCon2021)’ held through virtual mode during June 19-22, 2021 at ICAR-Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India.
Received “Certificate of appreciation” for serving as Rapporteur of the short oral session – Theme: Sugarcane Improvement- Conventional Breeding lead oral in the “International Conference on Sugarcane Research: Sugarcane for Sugar and Beyond (CaneCon2021)’ held through virtual mode during June 19-22, 2021 at ICAR-Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India.

Research Publications

Kumar, R., Dhansu, P., Kulshreshtha, N., Meena, M. R., Kumaraswamy, M. H., Appunu, C., Chhabra, M. L., & Pandey, S. K. (2023). Identification of salinity tolerant stable sugarcane cultivars using AMMI, GGE and some other stability parameters under multi environments of salinity stress. Sustainability, 15(2), Article 1119. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15021119
Kumar, R., Meena, M. R., Dhansu, P., Karuppaiyan, R., Appunu, C., Kulshreshtha, N., Kaushik, P., & Ram, B. (2022). Winter tolerance potential of genetically diverse sugarcane clones under subtropical climate of northern India. Sustainability, 14(18), Article 11757. https://doi.org/10.3390/su141811757
Kumar, R., Meena, M. R., Kulshreshtha, N., Kumar, A., & Ram, B. (2017). Genotypic response of recently evolved sugarcane “Co” clones under different levels of saline irrigation water. Journal of Sugarcane Research, 7, 159–168.
Kumar, R., Meena, M., Dhansu, P., Karuppaiyan, R., Appunu, C., Kulshreshtha, N., Kaushik, P., & Ram, B. (2025). Disclosure of productive and stable sugarcane genotypes for cane yield and quality traits using various stability statistics. Tropical Plant Biology, 18, Article 11. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12042-024-09374-0
Kumar, R., Premachandran, M. N., Appunu, C., Durai, A. A., Viola, R. V., Mahadevaiah, C., & Ram, B. (2015). Molecular identification and genetic improvement vis-à-vis comparison of yield and quality in different generations of Erianthus arundinaceus, bengalense and Saccharum spontaneum cyto-nuclear genome introgressed sugarcane. Indian Journal of Biotechnology, 14(2), 249–255.
Kumar, R., Appunu, C., Durai, A. A., Mahadevaiah, C., Sreenivasa, V., & Premachandran, M. N. (2015). Genetic confirmation and field performance comparison for yield and quality among advanced generations of Erianthus arundinaceus, bengalense and Saccharum spontaneum cyto-nuclear genome introgressed sugarcane intergeneric hybrids. Sugar Tech, 17(4), 379–385. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12355-014-0333-2
Kumar, R., Appunu, C., Mohanraj, K., Durai, A. A., Mahadevaiah, C., Sreenivasa, V., & Premachandran, M. N. (2013). Pedigree based assessment of genomic contribution of Saccharum species in the evolution and genetic diversity of elite sugarcane breeding stocks of India. International Journal of Agricultural and Statistical Sciences, 9(2), 627–638.
Kumar, R., Mohanraj, K., Durai, A. A., & Premachandran, M. N. (2012). Pedigree analysis of sugarcane parental breeding pool used in evolving ‘Co’ varieties in India. Indian Journal of Genetics and Plant Breeding, 72(1), 61–71.
Kumar, R., Waldia, R., & Kumar, R. (2012). Generation mean analysis and genetic parameters for yield and contributing traits in chickpea (Cicer arietinum). Indian Journal of Agricultural Sciences, 82(6), 528–531.
Kumar, R., Appunu, C., Mahadeviah, C., Sreenivasa, V., Waldia, R. S., Meena, M. R., & Chhabra, M. L. (2013). Impact of Ascochyta blight disease on the expression of biochemical compounds in chickpea. Legume Research: An International Journal, 36(3), 268–270.
Singh, N. V., Abburi, V. L., Ramajayam, D., Kumar, R., Chandra, R., Sharma, K. K., … & Reddy, U. K. (2015). Genetic diversity and association mapping of bacterial blight and other horticulturally important traits with microsatellite markers in pomegranate from India. Molecular Genetics and Genomics, 290(4), 1393-1402.
Appunu, C., Narayan, J. A., Mahadevaswamy, H. K., Karthigeyan, S., Valarmathi, R., Mahadevaiah, C., Kumar, R., Meena, M. R., & Ram, B. (2020). Variability and molecular diversity of wild sugarcane germplasm collected from low temperature regions Lohit and Changlang of Arunachal Pradesh. Indian Journal of Biotechnology, 19(3), 173–181.
Chinnaswamy, A., Sakthivel, S. K., Channappa, M., Valarmathi, R., Suresh, G., Shivalingamuthry, Swathik, C. P., Kumar, R., Arun, K. R., Pooja, D., Meena, M. R., Gomathi, R., Boominathan, P., & Manickavasagam, M. (2024). Overexpression of an NF-YB gene family member, EaNF-YB2, enhances drought tolerance in sugarcane (Saccharum hybrid). BMC Plant Biology, 24, Article 1246. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12870-024-05932-6
Dhansu, P., Ram, B., Singh, A. K., Tomar, S. K., Karuppaiyan, R., Kumar, R., Chhabra, M. L., Singh, A., Raja, A. K., Kaushik, P., & Pandey, S. K. (2023). Different Treatments for Sugarcane Juice Preservation. Foods, 12(2), 311. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods12020311
Dhansu, P., Kulshreshtha, N., Kumar, R., Raja, A. K., Pandey, S. K., Goel, V., & Ram, B. (2021). Identification of drought-tolerant co-canes based on physiological traits, yield attributes and drought tolerance indices. Sugar Tech, 23(4), 747–761. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12355-021-00967-7
Dharshini, S., Chakravarthi, M., Narayan, J. A., Manoj, V. M., Naveena Rani, M., Kumar, R., Meena, M. R., Ram, B., & Appunu, C. (2016). De novo sequencing and transcriptome analysis of a low temperature tolerant Saccharum spontaneum clone IND 00-1037. Journal of Biotechnology, 231, 280–294. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbiotec.2016.06.013
Dharshini, S., Manoj, V. M., Suresha, G. S., Narayan, J. A., Padmanabhan, S. S. T., Kumar, R., Meena, M. R., Manickavasagam, M., Ram, B., & Appunu, C. (2020). Isolation and characterization of nuclear localized abiotic stress responsive cold regulated gene 413 (SsCor413) from Saccharum spontaneum. Plant Molecular Biology Reporter, 38(3), 463–475. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11105-020-01224-z
Meena, M. R., Karuppaiyan, R., Ram, B., Kumar, R., & Kulshreshtha, N. (2017). Genotypes x environment interactions and stability analysis of sugarcane clones (Saccharum) by AMMI model in sub-tropical region of India. Indian Journal of Genetics and Plant Breeding, 77(4), 540–546. https://doi.org/10.5958/0975-6906.2017.00071.6
Mahadevaiah, C., Vignesh, P., Appunu, C., Valarmathi, R., Dhansu, P., Kumar, A., Dharshini, S., Padmanabhan, T. S. S., Narayan, J. A., Selvamuthu, K., Sreenivasa, V., Mahadeva Swamy, H. K., Vinu, V., Raja, A. K., Suresha, G. S., Hemaprabha, G., & Kumar, R. (2023). Physiological characterization of Tripidium arundinaceum and sugarcane (Saccharum) germplasm for salinity stress tolerance at the formative stage. Sustainability, 15(8), Article 6962. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15086962
Meena, M. R., Alarmelu, S., Vasantha, S., Sheelamary, S., Anusheela, V., Kumar, R. A., Kumar, R., Chhabra, M. L., Mutharasu, S., & Karthick, M. (2024). Drought resilience evaluation of sugarcane (Saccharum) hybrids in Indian tropical and sub-tropical climates. Indian Journal of Genetics and Plant Breeding, 84(2), 266–272. https://doi.org/10.31742/ISGPB.84.2.15
Meena, M. R., Govindaraj, P., Kumar, R. A., Elayaraja, K., Appunu, C., Kumar, R., Chhabra, M. L., Kulshreshtha, N., & Hemaprabha, G. (2024). Biomass and energy potential of Erianthus arundinaceus and Saccharum spontaneum-derived novel sugarcane hybrids in rainfed environments. BMC Plant Biology, 24, Article 198. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12870-024-04885-0
Meena, M. R., Kumar, R., Chinnaswamy, A., Karuppaiyan, R., Kulshreshtha, N., Ram, B., & Pandey, S. K. (2020). Current breeding and genomic approaches to enhance the cane and sugar productivity under abiotic stress conditions. 3 Biotech, 10(10), Article 440. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13205-020-02409-2
Meena, M. R., Kumar, R., Karuppaiyan, R., Kulshreshtha, N., Ram, B., & Chhabra, M. L. (2024). Unraveling the stability of sugarcane clones using multivariate stability models for cane yield and quality under subtropical climates. Sugar Tech, 26(3), 672–682. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12355-024-01442-9
Dhansu, P., Kumar, R., Kumar, A., Vengavasi, K., Raja, A. K., Vasantha, S., Meena, M. R., Kulshreshtha, N., & Pandey, S. K. (2022). Differential physiological traits, ion homeostasis and cane yield of sub-tropical sugarcane varieties in response to long-term salinity stress. Sustainability, 14(20), Article 13246. https://doi.org/10.3390/su142013246
Meena, M. R., Mohanraj, K., Kumar, R., Kumar, R. A., Chhabra, M. L., Kulshreshtha, N., Krishnappa, G., Swamy, H. K. M., Suganya, A., Govindaraj, P., & Ram, B. (2024). Deciphering winter sprouting potential of Erianthus procerus-derived sugarcane hybrids under subtropical climates. Plants, 13(7), Article 1023. https://doi.org/10.3390/plants13071023
Meena, M. R., Kumar, R., Karuppaiyan, R., Chhabra, M. L., Kulshreshtha, N., Pandey, S. K., & Ram, B. (2020). Biomass potential of novel interspecific and intergeneric hybrids of Saccharum grown in sub-tropical climates. Scientific Reports, 10, Article 21560. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-78329-8
Dharshini, M. S., Hoang, N. V., Mahadevaiah, C., Padmanabhan, T. S. S., Alagarasan, G., Suresha, G. S., Kumar, R., Meena, M. R., Ram, B., & Appunu, C. (2020). Root transcriptome analysis of Saccharum spontaneum uncovers key genes and pathways in response to low-temperature stress. Environmental and Experimental Botany, 171, Article 103935. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envexpbot.2019.103935
Murugan, N., Kumar, R., Pandey, S. K., Dhansu, P., Chennappa, M., Nallusamy, S., Govindakurup, H., & Chinnaswamy, A. (2023). In silico dissection of regulatory regions of PHT genes from Saccharum hybrid and Sorghum bicolor and expression analysis of PHT promoters under osmotic stress conditions in tobacco. Sustainability, 15(2), Article 1048. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15021048
Sreenivasa, V., Mahadevaiah, C., Mahadeva Swamy, H. K., Kumar, R. A., Meena, M. R., Appunu, C., Kumar, R., Mohanraj, K., Govindaraj, P., & Hemaprabha, G. (2024). Deciphering biomass contributing traits of interspecific and intergeneric hybrids derived from early generations hybrids of Saccharum and Erianthus as potential sources of biomass and bioenergy. Industrial Crops and Products, 211, Article 118267. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indcrop.2024.118267
Venkatarayappa, S., Channappa, M., Amaresh, Kumar, R., Kumar, R. K., Meena, M. R., Durai, A. A., Chinnaswamy, A., Govindakurup, H., & Perumal, G. (2025). Evaluation of Saccharum and Erianthus introgressed early generation novel sugarcane hybrids as potential sources of biomass for cogeneration. Sugar Tech, 27(1), 158–172. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12355-024-01421-0

Books

Govindaraj, P., Mohanraj, K., Appunu, C., Jayakumar, V., Kumar, R., Manjunatha, T., & Sivaraman, K. (Eds.) (2012). Hundred Years of Research in Sugarcane Breeding Institute (1912-2012) Publisher: Director, ICAR-Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Coimbatore 641 007, India. SBI Centenary Publication No 21. (Pages 317).
Kumar, Ravinder., Meena, M. R., Kulshreshtha, N., Chhabra, M. L., & Kumar, Rajesh. (Eds.). (2017). Saransh sangrah: Bharat mein mithas kranti ke sau varsh: Co 205 se Co 0238 tak [Abstract collection: One hundred years of the sweet revolution in India: From Co 205 to Co 0238]. Indian Council of Agricultural Research – Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Regional Centre970. (Pages 148).

Book Chapters

Meena, M. R., Kumar, R., Karuppaiyan, R., Parameswari, B., & Ram, B. (2017). Procedure for filling application for registration of varieties under PPV&FR Act. In IP Protection and Technology Transfer in Indian Perspective (pp. 133–151). ICAR-NBAGR, Karnal. (ISBN: 978-93-83537-31-0).
Lakshmi, K., Appunu, C., Kumar, R., Meena, M. R., & Yadav, D. K. (2021). Transgenic approaches for biotic stress tolerance in plants. In P. Yadav, S. Kumar, & V. Jain (Eds.), Recent Advances in Plant Stress Physiology (pp. 1–539). Astral International Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi.
Kaur, L., Meena, M. R., Kumar, R., Appunu, C., & Kulshreshtha, N. (2021). Molecular approaches for improving abiotic stress tolerance in sugarcane. In Shankar et al. (Eds.), Climate Change and Crop Stress (pp. 1–525). Elsevier. (ISBN: 9780128160916).
Meena, M. R., Akhtar, T., Raja, A. K., Vasantha, S., Pooja, Kumar, R., & Pandey, S. K. (2022). Impact of salinity stress on sugarcane yield and quality: Management approaches for higher cane sugar productivity. In K. K. Verma, X. P. Song, V. D. Rajput, S. Solomon, Y. R. Li, & G. P. Rao (Eds.), Agro-industrial Perspectives on Sugarcane Production under Environmental Stress. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3955-6_3
Govindaraj, P., Meena, M. R., Kumar, R., Patwa, N., Elayaraja, K., Amaresh, & Sreenivasa, V. (2024). Powering tomorrow: Advancements in energycane breeding for sustainable bioenergy solutions. In G. S. Suresha et al. (Eds.), Value Addition and Product Diversification in Sugarcane (pp. 311–322). Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-7228-5_16 (ISBN: 978-981-97-7227-8).
Dhansu, P., Raja, A. K., Vengavasi, K., Kumar, R., Pazhany, A. S., Kumar, A., Kumar, N., Mann, A., & Pandey, S. K. (2022). Physiological and molecular adaptation of sugarcane under drought vis-a-vis root system traits. In Drought – Impacts and Management. IntechOpen. https://doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.103795
Pooja, Kumar, A., Mann, A., Kumar, R., Meena, B. L., Sheoran, P., Parameswari, B., & Kulshreshtha, N. (2017). Insights into biotechnological interventions for sugarcane improvement. In Biotechnology to Enhance Sugarcane Productivity and Stress Tolerance (pp. 131–152). CRC Press. (ISBN: 978-131-51-5277-6).
Kumar, Y., Singh, V., Samita, & Kumar, R. (2020). Maintenance breeding and varietal notification system in India. In A. Bhuker, A. K. Chhabra, & V. P. Singh (Eds.), Seed Science and Technology (pp. 46–70). Kalyani Publishers.