Botany

The Department of Botany was incepted in 1965 by introducing B.Sc. Botany and during 1979, M.Sc., Botany course was started. The Department was conferred as Research Centre in 1984 and since 1985 M.Phil., and Ph.D., programmes have been offered in the various fields of basic and applied plant biology. Till date, 25 researchers got awarded with Ph.D., degree and 15 research scholars are pursuing doctoral programme currently. In due course, various infrastructure facilities viz., botanical garden, microbiology lab, plant tissue culture lab, herbarium, mushroom house, vermicomposting yard, microbial treatment of College STP to recycle the waste water, terrace garden and model horticulture garden and with necessary modern instrumentation facilities have been developed for the purpose of teaching-learning and research. Students are trained with rich learning experience by exposing them with hands-on training, offered with high standard practical knowledge. The faculty members of botany are undertaking research and extension activities in the diversified fields of Botany: biodiversity and conservation, phytogeography, medicinal plants, plant nutrition, forest nursery technology, Rangelands and environmental management systems, phyto-chemistry, plant pathology, plant-microbe interaction, plant-bird interaction, plant tissue culture, nano biotechnology and solid and liquid waste management. Department of Botany has good citation records (1324), as on July, 2019 on its peer-review publications of national and international level, authored by members of Botany Faculty. The research publication includes books, monographs, scholarly written general articles, learning materials and technical reports, laboratory manual, has been used as learning resource materials. Research Grants, received from various national agencies including DST-FIST, DBT-STAR College Programme, UGC (Major and Minor projects), MoEF, State Forest Department and Thiagarajar College Management offered Seed Money Project are about 1.5 crores, till date, and the grants have been greatly supporting to undertake research projects. The full-time Research scholars have been availed the fellowships on various schemes and all the full-time and part-time Ph.D., scholars have been provided with modern analytical lab equipment facility to carry out the research projects, besides providing the current knowledge on the curricula and research. Faculty members of Department of Botany have also been appointed as members in professional associations and State Government Departments. In 2019, an Incubation Centre 'Wealth from Solid and Liquid wastes recycling management' was started in the College, by the efforts undertaken by the Department of Botany. Consultancy to the industry on effluent and wastewater recycling has been offered. Besides teaching-learning, research and consultancy, the Department of Botany commits greatly towards the community development through active participation in several environment awareness, outreach activities.