Principal Scientist (Horticulture)

Born on 24th June. 1962 at Gudiwada Krishna District of Andhra Pradesh Dr. Vijayakumari Narukulla obtained her M. Sc. (Hort.) and Ph. D. from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. Dr. Vijayakumari joined as a Scientist (Hort.) at NRCC, Nagpur in 1991. Since then she is working on citrus improvement through in vitro shoot tip grafting. Micropropagation and classical breeding techniques. She was instrumental in developing the tissue culture laboratory with all required equipment and infrastructure at National Research Centre for Citrus. She has standardized the technique of in vitro shoot tip grafting (STG) in Nagpur mandarin, Citrus Exotic germplasm for elimination of virus and virus like disease, which is first of its kind, on STG in India. Presently she is working in tissue culture laboratory and her work mainly pertains to nicro grafting, micro propragation and microbudding in Citrus,

Dr. Vijayakumari has received foreign training of “in vitro shoot tip grafting and related aspects” for 3 month at Institute Valaenciano De Investigacions Agrarias, Moncada, Valencia, Spain in 1995. she was invited to deliver the expert licture and demonstrate the techniques of in vitro shoot tip grafting at IARI New Delhi and at Aspee College of Horticulture and Forestry, Navasari, Gujarat.

Dr. Vijayakumari was a recipient of Dr. Harbhajan Singh award and a gold medal for the year 1991 (for the best paper titled evaluation of gynoecious F1 hybridsfor Horticultural characters in cucumber (cucumis sativus L)(based on Ph. D. work) by the Indian Society of Vegetable Science.) Further she has secured best poster award for the research paper entitled In vitro shoot tip grafting (STG) for production of disease free planting material in citrus; the NRCC protocol in “National Seminar of Hi-tech Horticulture” held at Bangalore during the year 2000.
Dr. Vijayakumari is a life member of Horticulture Society of India and Indian Society of Citriculture and she has got 40 publication & exclusively on citrus shoot tip grafting technique and on breeding and other aspects of tissue culture in reputed national and international journals.