mangaluru mk rajesh has been selected to head the icarcentral plantation crops research institute regional station vittal near here by agricultural scientists recruitment board asrb he assumed charge on wednesday the station is about 30 kms from herethe post of head of station was vacant after the retirement of k s ananda on april 30 2018 c t jose and s elain apsara were acting heads of the station from then till datea release from the institute stated that rajesh has made significant contributions to the field of molecular biology and biotechnology with particular reference to coconut and arecanut in the areas of tissue culture the application of molecular markers genomics and transcriptomics he was involved in the development of tissue culture protocols for coconut from plumular explantshe has identified molecular markers linked to the talldwarf trait in coconut and arecanut and has developed molecular marker panels for hybrid purity assessment in these two crops rajesh has undertaken sequencing assembly and analysis of the nuclear and organellar genomes of the chowghat green dwarf cgd cultivar of coconut which possess enhanced disease resistance and categorised the repertoire of resistance gene analogues rgas in the cgd nuclear genome the release addedhe was also part of the team involved in the development of kalpasree variety of coconut possessing enhanced resistance to root wilt disease identification of markers linked to sex determination in palmyrah development and validation of estssr markers in coconut and cocoa development of coconut artificial pollination management system development of in vitro inoculation assays for studying the interactions of coconut and arecanut with phytophthora spp and standardization of pollen cryopreservation protocols in coconut and arecanut he has published more than 125 research papers and authored eight bookshe is the son of late mk nair the former director of cpcri and late m j ratnambal former principal scientist of cpcri rajesh has served in various capacities in the indian society for plantation crops he has served as secretary ispc and editor of jpc for two terms