Dr. Harish Kumar completed B.Sc. in Agriculture from UAS Bangalore, an M.Sc. in Genetics from IARI New Delhi, and a Ph.D. in Genetics from IARI New Delhi. He joined PAU as an Assistant Plant Breederin June 2016. With over nine years of research experience in plant breeding,His work continues to focus on advancing cotton breeding, sustainable pest management, and improving farm-level profitability through innovative breeding solutions.He has involved in the development/testing and release of 43 varieties across various crops, including Cotton (12), Wheat (7), Oat (7), Chickpea (3), Berseem (2), Sorghum (2), Bajra (4), Mustard (2), Fieldpea (1), Mungbean (1), Foxtail millet (1) and Proso millet (1). He has authored several high-impact publications in reputed national and international journals. He has guided four postgraduate students andis actively involved in teaching Plant Breeding courses to postgraduate students.

Professional Accomplishments

Research Projects:

Ongoing:

1. Cotton Phase II project: Development of next-generation transgenic cotton for broad-spectrum resistance to field pests for yield protection
2. Genomic Assisted Introgression Breeding for Developing White Fly Tolerant American Cotton and High Yielding Desi Cotton Tolerant to Shattering
3. Integrating omics approaches for studying plant defense against pests and pathogens

Completed:

1. Strengthening cotton production for diversification of agriculture in Punjab

Research Publications (Best five):

1. Pathak, D., Rathore, P., Kaur, H., Singh, B., Kumar, H., Ali, A., Punia, S., Sekhon, P.S. and Singh, K., 2025. Introgression and Mapping of Cotton Leaf Curl Disease Resistance from Wild Gossypium armourianum Kearney into Upland Cotton ( hirsutum). Plant Disease, 109(3), pp.554-557.
2. Joshi B., Singh S., Tiwari G.J., Kumar H., Boopathi NM, Jaiswal S, Adhikari D, Kumar D, Sawant SV, Iquebal MA and Jena SN (2023) Genome-wide association study of fiber yield-related traits uncovers the novel genomic regions and candidate genes in Indian upland cotton (Gossypium hirsutum). Frontiers in Plant Science. 14:1252746. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2023.1252746
3. Gupta, M., Kumar, H., Kalia, V. K., Singh, S., Singh, A., Debbarma, A., and Kaur, S. (2023). Cloning, characterization and evaluation of toxicity of newly identified Vip3Aa proteins from Bacillus thuringiensis recovered from diverse environments for biological control of Helicoverpa armigera. Journal of Pest Science, 1-24.
4. Singh, I., Kaur, R., Kumar, A., Pandher, S., Kumar, H., Singh, S. and Sharma, A., 2025. Temperature driven expression and cross-host transmission associated with Bemisiatabaci vectored cotton leaf curl virus. Indian Phytopathology, 78(1), pp.161-166.
5. Vij S., Pathak D., Rathore P., Kumar H., Sekhon P.S., Bhatia D., Chhuneja P. and Singh K. (2022) Molecular mapping of CLCuD resistance introgressed from synthetic cotton polyploid in upland cotton. Journal of Genetics, 101(1), pp.1-8

Awards and Recognitions:

1. Involved in the development/testing and release of 43 varieties across various crops, including Cotton (12), Wheat (7), Oat (7), Chickpea (3), Berseem (2), Sorghum (2), Bajra (4), Mustard (2), Fieldpea (1), Mungbean (1), Foxtail millet (1) and Proso millet (1).
2. Awarded with “IARI Gold Medal”-2013 for outstanding academic performance in M.Sc. degree programme at Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi.
3. Recipient of ICAR-Senior Research Fellowship for completion of Ph.D. programme at Division of Genetics, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi.
4. Recipient of ICAR-Junior Research Fellowship for completion of M.Sc. programme at Division of Genetics, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi.
5. Recipient of ICAR- National Talent Scholarship for B.Sc. (Agriculture) program at University of Agricultural Science (UAS), Bangalore
6. Member of Board of Studies of the Division of Genetics, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi for the academic year 2014-15.
7. Best oral presentation award for the paper entitled” Utilizing secondary gene pool for enhancing trait value in cotton” at National Symposium on Cotton Production Technologies in the Next Decade: Problems and Perspectives” organized by Cotton Research and Development Association (CRDA) at OUA&T, Bhubaneshwar from 22-24th January, 2020.