Mandate

• Teaching Agricultural Meteorology courses at under graduate level and Agricultural Meteorology at post graduate level
• Carryout research work for understanding the crop-weather interactions, crop modeling, remote sensing and climate-based crop planning for major crops of Gujarat.
• Provide technical supports to for establishment, maintenance of instruments and recording of agrometeorological data and maintains Agromet data bank for Gujarat state and to provide them to user agencies.
• Disseminate the agromet information to farmers through various mode of communication and outreach activities.

(II) Post graduate Programme

(i)M.Sc./Ph.D. courses

Department offers Post Graduate courses in Agricultural Meteorology under its PG programme leading to M.Sc. and Ph.D. degree in Agricultural Meteorology. At present 4 Ph.D. and 5 M.Sc. students are perusing their study in the discipline. In addition to students majoring in Agricultural Meteorology, the students of other disciplines (Statistics, Agronomy, Soil Science, Horticulture, Entomology, Plant Pathology, Livestock Production Management, Agricultural information technology) also opt Agricultural Meteorology courses as allied courses in their P.G. programme. PG courses are offer as per ICAR Fifth Dean committee recommendation. In addition to these courses students opt other courses from minor /allied subjects of their interest.

(ii) Courses for P.G. and Ph.D.

1. Fundamentals of Meteorology and Climatology 2. Fundamentals of Agricultural Meteorology 3. Micrometeorology 4. Agro-meteorological measurements and Instrumentation 5. Soil water balance climatology 6. Crop weather models 7. Weather modification and risk management Strategies 8. Principles of remote sensing and its applications in Agriculture 9. Applied agricultural Climatology. 10. Climate change and sustainable development 11. Weather forecasting, 12. Air pollution Meteorology 13.Weather, climate and livestock 14. Analytical tools and methods for Agrometeorology 15. Strategic Use of climatic information 16. Mathematics in agriculture and Biology 17. Database management and commercialization of Agrometeorological data in E-service.

(iii) Academics achievements

Students from different parts of the country and foreign country as well, join the department for their M. Sc. and Ph.D. programmes. So far, thirty-nine (39) M.Sc. and thirty-three (33) Ph.D. students have earned their degree in Agricultural Meteorology. The research problems undertaken by the students ranged from agroclimatic resource characterization to crop-weather relationship, weather-pest-disease relationship, crop growth modeling, modeling of evapotraspiration, phyto-meteorology, energy balance studies, simulation modeling and yield prediction and remote sensing application.

Research programmes

Besides PG research in the department, the research work is carried out mainly under AICRP on Agrometeorology scheme, where in clear mandate is defined on different aspects viz; agroclimatic resource characterization, crop-weather relationship, crop growth modeling, crop weather-pest-disease relationships. Experiments are conducted to achieve the objectives set out under its mandate. Besides this, the research work is also carried out under different plan schemes, collaborative works and under ad-hoc research projects operating in the departments with the funding from ICAR/DST/ISRO/MoES etc.

Extension activities

The department is actively engaged in preparing weather-based agromet-advisories for the farming community of the zone. Based on weather forecast received from IMD, advisories are prepared for all the districts of the zone and disseminated through various mass media like news paper, TV channels, internet etc. Approximately 1,02133 plus registered farmers of middle Gujarat receiving SMS through mkisan portal biweekly (Tuesday and Friday). The research output, emerging out of research works recommended for the scientific and farming communities are used in preparing the Agro-Advisory in consultation with experts of different disciplines viz. Agronomy, Entomology and Plant Pathology etc. Department also provides training to subject matter specialists of government through T&V programme. Weather and climate awareness programme is also organized for the students/public/farmers from time to time.

Department act as a lead centre in Gujarat in providing technical know-how for establishment, maintenance of agrometeorological instruments, collection of data and their processing. Department also provides training to observers from time to time. Department has updated its agrometeorological observatories at all the 16 research stations under jurisdiction of AAU.

Other activities

Experts of the department also provide inputs for different scheme of Government of Gujarat as well as Government of India like Pradhanmantri Fasal Beema Yojana (PMBFY), drought monitoring, area estimation and yield forecasting using remote sensing, contingency crop planning and weather based advisories.

In addition to the education and research and extension activities being carried out the department also pioneer in starting a scientific society namely “Association of Agrometeorologists” with its headquarter at Anand publishes “Journal of Agrometeorology” regularly since 1999. Current NAAS rating of journal is 6.64 (Year 2020).