The University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore is a pioneer Agricultural University in India to create a separate and independent Department of Agricultural Microbiology in 1966. The mandate of the department then was to train students at undergraduate, masters’ and doctoral levels.

Dr. G. Rangaswami, a renowned microbiologist served as Professor and Head of this Department till 1971. He was instrumental in creating the basic infrastructure for teaching and research and was primarily responsible for training several leading soil microbiologists of India. This department is recognized as one of the best departments among those imparting instruction, training and conducting research in the area of Agricultural Microbiology in India. This department has received research funding from various state, national and international funding agencies. An UNDP review committee highly appreciated the research contribution of the department in their Plant Protection Programme.

Currently, the Department offers courses such as Fundamentals of Microbiology, Soil and Applied Microbiology for the undergraduate students. In addition, the Department also imparts hands on training to them on Biofertilizer Production and Mushroom cultivation as per the recommendations of V Dean’s Committee.

The courses at the post graduate level are Principles of Microbiology, Microbial Taxonomy, Cytology and Morphology of Microorganisms, Soil Microbiology, Microbial Techniques, Microbial Physiology and Metabolism, Microbial Genetics, Microbial Biotechnology, Food and Dairy Microbiology, Environmental Microbiology, Industrial Microbiology, Biofertilizer Technology, Autotrophic Microorganisms, Insect Microbiology, Bacteriophages. Specialized courses such as Advances in Fermentation, Advanced Microbial Physiology, Regulation of Microbial Biosynthesis, Current Topics in Soil Microbiology, Plant-Microbe Interaction, Microorganisms in Biofuels and Bioenergy Production, Microbial Management of Organic Wastes and Xenobotics are being offered for Doctoral scholars.

The department organizes summer and winter schools, seminars, conferences, workshops on different thematic areas for the benefit of scientists and research scholars. Further, training programmes are being conducted at regular intervals for officials of the state department of agriculture, farmers and junior level researchers.

Being a DST-FIST funded Department, the laboratories of the Department have been equipped with state of the art equipments such as HPLC, Fluid Bed Reactor, Fermentors, PCR s, Gel documentation units for conducting research in major thrust areas of research including Food Fermentation, Microbial Phylogeny, Biotechnology of Mushroom, Microbial and Industrial Biotechnology. In addition, a Cold room facility has been created for Post Graduate and faculty research. The Department houses adequate number of computers with round the clock internet facility for students and faculty.

The Department has a biofertilizer production unit along with a quality control lab funded by the Govt. of Karnataka which produces quality bio-inoculants such as Rhizobium, Azospirillum, Azotobacter, phosphate solubilizers, organic matter decomposers and biocontrol agents such as Trichoderma sp. and Pseudomonas fluorescens and different species of Azolla for large scale supply to local farmers.

Most of the faculty have been trained in cutting edge area of research including microbial phylogeny, mushroom cultivation and biotechnology, plant – microbe interactions, biocontrolof phytopathogens, mycorrhizal research, food conversion technology, food fermentations and processing, organic matter decomposition etc., and train the students in their respective areas of specialization.

Availing these laboratory facilities and expertise of the faculty, 522 M.Sc. (Ag.) students and 183 Ph.D. students have graduated from this Department and they have been placed at the premier research and development organizations in India and universities and organizations of international repute.

The Department continues to create human resource in Agricultural Microbiology since its inception and supporting the farmers through supply of low cost agricultural inputs connected with organic farming and sustainable agriculture.

Dr. K Nagaraju
Professor & Head
Department of Agricultural Microbiology
UAS,GKVK,
BAngalore-560065