had his B.Sc (Hort), M.Sc (Hort) and Phd in Pomology with specialisation in fruit breeding from the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore. He joined the Indian Institute of Horticultural Research as Scientist and he is presently working as Principal Scientist and heading the ‘Division of Fruit Crops’.

He has 28 years of experience in the breeding of fruit crops viz., mango, guava and papaya. Over the years he has helped in the establishment of mango and guava ‘Field Genebank’ with a collection comprising of 675 varieties of mango and 70 varieties of guava. He has developed one hybrid in guava, two advanced generation gynodioecious hybrids in papaya. He has published catalogues on mango and papaya, has contributed to book chapters and has more than 50 research papers to his credit besides being the editor of the book on ‘Fruit Breeding’.

He has visited several countries viz Australia, China, Thailand, Malaysia and Sri Lanka. He has handled several foreign aided projects with external funding viz., UNEP-GEF project on TFT species and livelihood security, ADB project on mango, apart from other projects on isozyme studies in mango, DBT project on mango and DUS Project in mango. He is also one of the authors who helped in developing ‘Bioversity International Descriptor on mango and the development of DUS guidelines for mango.

He has guided several MSc and PhD students. He is also the recipient of ‘AMRAPALI’ award from the ‘Society of Sub-tropical Horticulture’ and ‘Giridharilal Chadha Memorial’ award for his contribution to fruit science.

Besides being in the post-graduate faculty of the several Universities, is also a regular trainee faculty at the Institute training farmers, students and other officers of the horticultural departments including organizing international training programme.