Introduction
Directorate of Agricultural Research (DoAR), Karnali Province, Dasharathpur, Surkhet is located Lekhbeshi Municipality ward no. 4, Surkhet district of Karnali Province. It is extended at 28030” Northern latitude, 81047″ Eastern longitude, and 580-meter above mean sea level. is 26 km southeast from the district headquarter of Surkhet. The Government of Nepal established this station as “Agriculture Station, Surkhet” in 1977/78 AD. After establishment of Nepal Agriculture Research Council (NARC), this station is renamed as “Agriculture Research Station, Surkhet”. After the new federal republic government system, Agriculture Research Station, renamed as “Directorate of Agricultural Research” Since July 16, 2020. DoAR, Karnali Provice, Surkhet has subtropical climate and annual average rainfall is 1100 mm, of which 84.6% occurs between June and September. Temperature ranges from 50C to 37.5ºC in the month of January and April, respectively. The soil of DoAR, Surkhet is sandy loam in texture and acidic in reaction with pH value range from 5.3-5.8.
Vision
Improve livelihood of Karnali province people through increasing productivity of cereals, grain legumes, vegetables, fruits, forage and livestocks of quality source seeds/saplings/breeds and provision of technical services to the clients
Mission
To help increase agricultural productivity and production in Karnali province through generation of appropriate, sustainable and environmental friendly agricultural technologies and source seeds materials
Command area: Command area across Karnali Province, mostly focus on Mid hill and low hill districts where no other research cost centre working.
Land area utilization:
The details of land utilization of DoAR are as below:
| Description | Area (ha) |
| Total cultivated land | 30 |
| Buildings and residential area | 4 |
| Road and canals | 1.5 |
| Underutilized forest area | 3 |
| Total area | 38.5 |
Mandate
- Conduct on-station research based on farmers’ problems and generate appropriate technologies in crops, vegetables, fruits, forage and livestock sector
- Develop organic production technologies for vegetables and cereals for Karnali Province
- Collect, evaluate, register and conserve local germplasms, breeds found in Karnali province
- Accomplish the national coordinated trials as multi location testing site
- Verify the generated technologies in farmer’s field through on-farm research
- Provide source seeds/saplings/breed of crops, vegetables, fruits, forage and livestocks
- Disseminate the developed technologies and source seeds to the farming communities through extension partners like Agriculture Development Officer, local government , NGO/INGO, CBOs and farmers’ group
- Provide province level policy for agricultural research
- Coordinate, monitor, conduct review, planning and progress evaluation workshops/seminars/meetings for Karnali province located programs/cost centers.
-
- Varietal development and improvement work for multi commodities
Varietal development work is carried out in collaboration with the national commodity programs of Maize, Wheat, Rice, Grain Legumes, Hill crops, Oilseeds, National Research Centers etc. Activities like Coordinated Varietal Trial (CVT), Initial Evaluation Trial/Intermediate Yield Trial (IET/IYT), Farmers’ Field Trial (FFT), Participatory Varietal Selection (PVS) and Farmers Acceptance Test (FAT) are conducted under collaborative projects.
- Utilization, improvement and conservation of local germplasms/breeds
Collection, characterization, evaluation, utilization and registration of local landraces of different crops, vegetables, fruits,
-
-
- Climate resilient technologies
-
Drought, heat stress tolerant germplasms of crops, vegetables and fruits evaluation, utilization and conservation. Development and selection of suitable high yielding upland rice varieties for Karnali province mid hill district will be given priority.
- Generate demand based technologies
Karnali Province is going to be announcing organic province completely near future so to address this province agricultural policy, organic production technologies for demanding crop will be carried. Cropping system based research; intercropping, mixed cropping will be carried out.
- Introduction of new vegetables and fruits high value commodity
Exotic vegetables, fruits high value commodity will be introduced, evaluated and upscalling will be carried out as demand.
- Establishment of new commodity research in livestock sector
Karnali province has huge scope in livestock rearing so new commodity goat, pig, buffalo has great scope so new research and resource centre will be established
- Source seeds/saplings supply of various cereals, vegetables and fruits
Quality source seed specially foundation and breeder seeds of various cereals and vegetable will be provided. Saplings of vegetable and fruits specially will be provided. Source seed at farmers level promoting community based seed production (CBSP) program will be carried out in large scale in command districts.
- Infrastructure development for research support
Infrastructure for research such as laboratory facility for plant pathology, Enotomology, soil science, plant breeding and horticulture will be established. Irrigation facility with high capacity lift system from Bheri river will be established. Drip irrigation system will be developed for demonstration purpose. For protective horticulture technology generation and nursery sapling resource centre establishment Hi-tech nursery with tissue culture lab, screen house, glass house and poly house will be developed.
Researcher:
- Mr. Devnidhi Tiwari, Senior Scientist (S-4)/Director
- Mr. Nain Singh Chhetri, Technical Officer (T6)
- Mr. Gam Bahadur Pun Technical Officer (T6)
Contact address:
Nepal Agricultural Research Council
Directorate of Agricultural Research
Karnali Province, Lekbeshi-4, Dasharathpur, Surkhet
Phone: +988-9858051017
Email:surkhetars@gmail.com
Website: www.narc.gov.np