The Department of Agricultural Meteorology and Physics, established in the year 1995, is a full-fledged department under the Faculty of Agriculture. Since inception, this Department offers requisite courses in the domain of Agricultural Meteorology to the under-graduate students of Faculties of Agriculture and Horticulture, in addition to post graduate degrees (M. Sc and Ph. D) in Agricultural Meteorology under Course and Credit system. An agro meteorological observatory, an automatic weather station and a Bowen ratio Energy Balance tower are operational under the aegis of this department, for recording various meteorological and energy and radiation flux parameters that are being extensively utilized by the students, researchers and policymakers. Faculty members of this department are engaged in various national and inter-national ad-hoc research projects both in basic meteorology and climate science and their application in agriculture. Important areas of research interest are: crop micrometeorological studies, hydrometeorology, crop-weather modeling, climate change and its impact in agriculture, climate modeling, empirical statistical downscaling (ESD), climate resilient agriculture, crop simulation modeling, remote sensing and GIS and their application in agriculture, etc. Faculty members of this department are also actively involved to provide crop specific weather based agro-advisory services to farmers.
Vision & Mission
Apart from regular teaching activities, the vision and mission of the department is to study the agricultural climate in relation to regional crop planning and assessment of crop production potentials, to establish crop-weather relationships for major crops of West Bengal, to evaluate different techniques of modification of crop microclimates for enhancing the water-use efficiency and productivity. The department is keen to evaluate the weather-influence on the incidence and spread of pests and diseases of field crops. Agro-advisory support to farming communities of New Alluvial Zone of West Bengal are regularly provided by the department.
The department focuses on establishing state-of-art Laboratory on Climate Change study in relation to agriculture. The department also addresses critical weather related problems in agriculture through basic and strategic research. To enhance the resilience of agriculture to climate change by developing adaptation and mitigation strategies is another mission of our department.
Course offered and intake details:
The list of courses offered is given in Annexure-I and total intake per year is 10 students at M.Sc. Level.
Infrastructure / Facilities
- Teaching class-rooms: Two
- Laboratories: One laboratory under AICRP on Agrometeorology; Two climate change laboratory; one laboratory under FASAL Project; One GIS Unit
- Seminar Halls: One
- Committee/ Meeting Room: One
- Field facilities for Research (Both for the faculty as well as students): Well maintained observatory is available.
- Equipments available with the Department (Give details): Name /Year or purchase/ status.
Profile moisture meter2008In operation
| Name of equipment | Year of purchase | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Net Radiometer | 2016 | In operation |
| Pyranometer | 2013 | In operation |
| Water quality monitoring instruments of U-tech | 2012 | In operation |
| Macro and micrometeorological instruments | 2012 | Needs some minor repairing |
| GC of Perkin Elmer | 2012 | In operation |
| Canopy analyzer | 2008 | Needs some minor repairing |
| Thermo Fisher SPM /SO2 analyzer | 2008 | Needs some minor repairing |
| Pressure Plate Apparatus | 2001 | In operation |
| Pressure bomb apparatus | 2001 | In operation |
