Neelamraju Ganga Prasada Rao Biography 
Dr. Neelamraju Ganga Prasada Rao - Father of Hybrid Sorghum was a distinguished geneticist and plant breeder who formerly served as the vice chancellor of Vasantrao Naik Marathwada Agricultural University and chairman of the Agricultural Scientists Recruitment Board of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. He was a recipient of the prestigious Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Award instituted in 1956 by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) to recognize Indian researchers in the agricultural field, and he received the honour in 1974. He was also a recipient of VASVIK Industrial Research Award, Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology etc.
Neelamraju Ganga Prasada Rao is known for his efforts in developing hybrid varieties of sorghum. Though he is a geneticist and plant breeder of different species, his works with sorghum, a genus of flowering plants earned him success and fame. He was a second rank holder at Agricultural College, Bapatla for his graduation in agriculture. He also completed his master's degree at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute with a first rank. Later he secured his PhD from Bihar University in 1958. He hailed from Korisapadu, a village now belonging to Prakasam district of Andhra Pradesh.
He started his professional career as a lecturer at Osmania University. Later he switched from teaching profession to research and joined Indian Agricultural Research Institute as a plant breeder for sorghum. As the project head he conducted research works on sorghum for many years. He also taught at College of Agriculture, Hyderabad and at IARI campus in New Delhi while continuing with his work as a plant breeder. He developed three new varieties of sorghum namely CSH-1, CSH-2 and CSH-9, which returned high yield levels. The varieties also became popular very soon. He also made contributions in dry land crops, particularly long staple desi cotton, castor, pigeon pea and also novel cropping systems.
Published: February 27, 2019
Updated: February 27, 2019
