Historical Profile of NRCM :

 

It was on the 8^th June, 1983 when the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, the apex body for agricultural research and education in the country, established the National Centre for Mushroom Research and Training, NCMRT (now National Research Centre for Mushroom, NRCM) at Solan, Himachal Pradesh, with a mandate to carry out research, training and extension on all aspects of mushrooms in the country. The Centre functioned under the administrative control of the Director, Central Potato Research Institute, Shimla, upto March 31, 1986. It was formally inaugurated on 21^st June, 1986 by Dr. G.S. Dhillon, the then Hon’ble Union Minister for Agriculture and President, ICAR Society. Dr. H.S. Sohi was the first Director from Sept 1986 to Feb. 90. Dr. R.N Verma was the Director from 19^th October, 1994 to 31st March 2002. Dr. R.P.Tewari is the present Director from July 31, 2002.

It has pursued these goals over the years and has been able to disseminate uptodate information relating to different aspects of cultivation technology. Besides it has also created a general awareness among the people about mushrooms, their nutritional qualities and their potential as an income generating high value crop. To a considerable extent, these activities of the Centre have helped to motivate growers across the country to undertake the cultivation of different kinds of mushrooms at different levels ranging from kitchen garden level to export oriented units, the overall effect of which has manifested itself in almost five times increase in the total production in the country in the last 5-7 years.

The Centre besides conservation and maintenance of the germplasm of edible fungi, has strengthened its activities on improving the strains and the crop husbandry practices of the button mushrooms, accelerated the programmes on diversification of species and has generated valuable information on oyster, shiitake, black ear and giant mushroom. The Centre is also regularly conducting training and extension acticvities.There has been a broader interaction between the scientists and mushroom growers by way of increased visits to growers farms and several off campus training programmes conducted at the Centre.