About 2022

Since long I have not updated my personal portal. Before I jump in to my present status, I would like to briefly give the past experiences.

After my tenure at King Saud University I moved to the YALA group as a consulting professor for Date Palm and introduced several agricultural practices to help in production and protection of date farms in vast areas of Al Qassim, Saudi Arabia. With Chairman’s support I have been able to introduce sniffer dogs for the early detection red palm weevil infestations in young date gardens. Good Agricultural Practices for date palm cultivation have been strengthened with introduction of several new items.

Worked as a member of high-level Red Palm Weevil Control committee of Food and Agriculture Organization of United Nations (FAO of UN) attended several meetings in Cairo and Rome and was instrumental in the publication of a valuable book on RPW.

Another long-term assignment with FAO in 2017-18 took me to Riyadh where a team of expert from various branches of agriculture under my leadership prepared blue print for the effective and efficient management of RPW in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Ministry of Environment, Agriculture and Water, Saudi Arabia conducted several interactive meetings in all provinces to understand the farmer issues especially date palm cultivation. Based on feedback received from farmers and agriculture officials, documents were developed for the management of RPW in a sustainable manner. I was also involved with the Public Investment Fund as a consultant in developing a new project related to agriculture. I assume the work is in progress.

About Me

Prof. Prof. Polana SPV Vidyasagar is a well known international scientist in the field of agriculture and plantation crops research especially in the management of pests of palms and contributed substantially to the understanding of Date Palm Red Palm Weevil pest. He has conducted and supervised research for more than two decades on plantation crops alone. He was instrumental in bringing a technical team to work on the Management of Red Palm Weevil in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for five years between 1993 and 1998. His innovative approach has allowed the unveiling of several new techniques and methods in the control of Red Palm Weevil. Dr. Vidyasagar is a fellow of Indian Society of Plantation Crops and member in several professional societies besides being a referee of scientific journals. He has to his credit more than 84 publications in regional and international journals. Apart from this he has many technical reports on aspects of governmental regulation of GM crops. For the benefit of farmers, researchers, academician and others, a blog called www.redweevil.com is run with regular updates.

His association with the Ministry of Agriculture of Saudi Arabia started in 1992 as a short term consultant has resulted in the deputation of an Indian Technical team between 1993 and 1998. He headed a team that achieved the objectives of reducing the Red Palm Weevil infestations substantially within the stipulated period. For conducting exclusive research on RPW a laboratory was established and several local people were also trained.

As Director of Technical services in a multinational Seed Company Dr. Vidyasagar has organized and supervised a series of trials testing the insect tolerance of GM cotton hybrids in the field. He has managed regulatory affairs of the company and contributed for the release of new Bt cotton hybrids.

Though his stint in arecanut, cashew and spices was very short, he made several noteworthy contributions.