Message received from Dr. Tarlok Singh Sahota.
Dear All:
You may be aware that Harpinder Randhawa received the Gold Harvest Award for Innovation, Collaboration and Service Excellence from the Assistant Deputy Minster, Science and Technology Branch, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.
The Gold Harvest Award (Prix Moisson D'or) honours exceptional and significant contributions made by AAFC employees and partners through the excellence of the work they perform, the exemplary behaviour they demonstrate, and the positive results they achieve.
It is a great honor and privilege for any one to receive this award. Please join me in Congratulating Harpinder!
Thanks & Best Regards.
Tarlok Singh Sahota
Director of Research & Business Thunder Bay Agricultural Research Station
[email protected]
www.tbars.net*****
"Dr. Harpinder Singh Randhawa is a spring wheat and triticale breeder working at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. His passion for wheat breeding developed during his childhood while he grew up and worked alongside his parents on the family farm in Punjab. He obtained his B.Sc Agriculture (Hons) in 1990 and M.Sc with a specialization in Plant Breeding in 1993 from Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana. In 1994, he was appointed as Assistant Rice Breeder at the Punjab Agricultural University where he was part of a team whose objective was to develop high yielding cultivars of rice. He completed his PhD in Plant Science at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada in 2002 and then worked as a post-doctoral Fellow at the Washington State University, Pullman, USA. Dr. Randhawa focused his research to develop new wheat genomics tools, novel strategies for rapid introgression of traits using marker assisted backcrossing, genetic and physical mapping of agronomically important traits in wheat and eventually developing improved wheat cultivars. Since 2007, Dr. Randhawa has been working as a spring wheat and triticale breeder with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada at the Lethbridge Research Centre, Alberta. His prime focus of research is to develop spring wheat cultivars that have better agronomic performance, excellent end use quality and resistance to various biotic and abiotic stresses in western Canada. He has developed eight high yielding spring wheat cultivars and co-developed four high yielding triticale cultivars for general production in western Canada. Dr. Randhawa’s Wheat Breeding program is funded through a unique P4 partnership involving Alberta Wheat Commission, Canterra Seeds and AAFC. His other research interests include the identification of new sources of disease resistance in wheat, genetic mapping, doubled haploid production, and new breeding tools. He has published over 47 research articles in the international journals, supervises many undergraduate and graduate students and post-doctoral fellows and attended over 29 National and International conferences."
