SARDA Ag Research

Surendra Bhattarai, PhD The latest addition to the SARDA Ag Research Team

by Surendra Bhattarai, PhD, SARDA Ag Research

I came from a small village in Nepal where farming is the main occupation. With my strong interest in agriculture and farming, I studied BSc (Agriculture, 2013) from the Tribhuvan University, Nepal. I came to Canada in January 2015 to continue my studies at the University of Saskatchewan. I completed my MSc (Plant Science, 2017) and Ph.D. (Plant Science, 2020) under Dr. Bill Biligetu. After completing my Ph.D., I joined the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Saskatchewan as a Postdoctoral Fellow and developed salt-tolerant alfalfa breeding lines. I have published eight peer-reviewed articles during my graduate studies and presented them at many national and international conferences. I received many awards during my graduate studies, including the most prestigious Plant Sciences Outstanding MSc Graduate Student Award in 2016 and The Seed of the Year-West Scholarship in 2018.

I have been learning and researching plant physiology, forage agronomy, breeding and genetics at the University of Saskatchewan. My involvement in crop research projects included organizing and establishing small plot research trials, experimental design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, writing of scientific manuscripts, and presentations at scientific conferences and industry meetings. I have experience providing extension services for climate-smart agriculture and technology transfer to corn producers in Nepal.

I am a Research Scientist at SARDA Ag Research and am passionate about researching to achieve sustainable cropping systems via producer-driven applied research and knowledge transfer. I am looking forward to working closely with the producers in re-designing cropping systems for profitability, sustainability and resilience.

I enjoy listening to music, driving and playing soccer.