SALIENT PROFESSIONAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF DR. C. PARMAR

• Initiated in 1974 research work on wild and unexploited fruits and carried out the first systematic survey of the Himalayan wild fruits to identify promising species for domestication.

• Started research on propagation for some promising wild fruits and collected for the first time basic information about seed germination, rooting of cuttings and air layers of these plants.

• Published in 1982 the book, Wild Fruits of the sub-Himalayan Region, which carried the first authoritative account of various characteristics, current and potential uses of 26 Himalayan wild plants.  The book was not only received well at home and abroad, but was also admired in reviews published in the most leading international horticultural journals like Horticultural Abstracts (July, 1982) and HortScience(April, 1984).

• The European Association for Research on Plant Breeding (EUCARPIA), invited me for a lecture on the Himalayan wild fruits at their Fruit Breeding Group Meeting held at Hradec Kralove, Czechoslovakia in 1987.

• The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences employed me as a Visiting Scientist for five months to work at Division of Fruit Breeding, Balsgard, Kristianstad on their project, Development of Novel Fruit Crops for Sweden.

• The Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) offered me their prestigious Senior Fellowship for seven weeks to visit Japan under their programme of inviting distinguished foreign scientists whose presence in Japan could be useful for the local scientists. I was in Japan during May and June 1990 and visited various universities and fruit research stations for lectures and discussions on the Himalayan wild fruits.

• In  recognition of my continued work on wild and unexploited edible fruit bearing plants, the USAID agreed to support a five year Indo-U.S. Collaborative Project on the domestication of five promising Himalayan wild fruits.  I was the Principal Investigator of this Project.

            This was the first project of its kind in India and one of very few such projects in the world at that time.      

• In May, 1992, started a private sector project, first of its kind in India, on the domestication of forest growing Himalayan Yew (Taxus baccata) whose leaves had suddenly shot into great demand due to the discovery of anticancer drug, TAXOL in them.   In a short span of 18 months, established a nursery where 6,00,000 cuttings of yew were planted in greenhouses under mist to give rise to half million plants for planting in the field.  This was the largest nursery in India for any single plant species.  Besides that, I also established for the first time trial field plantations of 15,000 plants of this wild plant.

• I was nominated as one of the members of the International Council for Research on Agroforestry (ICRAF) and the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS) Working Group on Fruit Crops for Agroforestry.                

• I am the Central Asia Consultant of the North American Fruit Explorers (NAFEX), Chapin, IL, USA for the past 16 years.

• I represented International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS) for several years in North India as their Country Correspondent.

• I am now recognized as a specialist of the Himalayan wild fruits at national as well as at international level.  I am frequently invited for participation in meetings etc. for my views on the utilization of these plants.

• I was invited by the North American Fruit Explorers (NAFEX), an organization of American orchardists interested in new fruits as a guest speaker at their Annual Meeting held in August, 2005 at Columbia, Missouri.  I gave four lectures at this Meeting fruits, nuts and edible plants growing wild in the Western Himalayan region.

• I visited China for three weeks in May-June, 2006 at the invitation of Prof. Xing Xiao of the China Agricultural University, Beijing and lectured on the utilization of wild growing fruits at several institutes at Beijing and China Academy of Agricultural Sciences at Zhengzhou, Hennan.

• I visited Israel in January, 2007 at the invitation of Exotic Fruit Society of Israel.

• I visited Brazil and Argentina for three weeks in September 2007.

• I was given the HIMACHAL SHREE award for the year 2007 in recognition of my efforts and contribution for the promotion of wild growing fruits of Himachal Pradesh.

• Launched in May 2008, Fruitipedia, an online encyclopedia on edible fruits. The encyclopedia available at www.fruitipedia.com. To begin with, it had information on 200 fruits from various parts of the world on the day of launch.  Pages on new fruits are being added every week so that eventually it has information about ALL EDIBLE FRUITS OF THE WORLD which might be around 4000.