In memoriam Dr. L.A. Ramdas

✍ Scribed by P.S. Sreenivasan

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1979
• Weight: 144 KB
• Volume: 20
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0002-1571
• DOI: 10.1016/0002-1571(79)90018-9

✦ Synopsis

During his long tenure for more than two decades in Poona as a doyen of Agricultural Meteorology, he developed many facets of this multi-disciplined subject. From 1933 to 1945, although this Division was very small, he could carry out pioneering work through guiding research workers with physics and agriculture degrees working for their M.Sc. or Ph.D. degrees, he being a professor recognised by various ur~iversities.

Being aware of the vital role played by weather in crop-growth and yield and in the geographical distribution of crops, to begin with, he standardised the technique for recording the crop-growth and yield by sampling methods and the weather experienced by the crops. In 1945, he was able to get the All-India Co-ordinated Crop-Weather Scheme for cereals, namely wheat, rice and jowar (sorghum), sponsored by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and subsequently for cotton by the Indian Central Cotton Committee, and for sugarcane by the Indian Central Sugarcane Committee. Under this project about a dozen stations for each crop were started in typical agro-climatic zones. So far utilising the basic data for wheat and rice, fundamental