Benjamin Peary Pal (1906-1989) was born in a Hindu family at Mukandpur in Punjab on May 26, 1906. After early education in Yangon, Myanmar, Pal moved to Cambridge and received his doctorate degree in 1933.
After returning to India, he joined the Imperial Agricultural Research Institute at Pusa, Bihar (now IARI, Delhi) as Second Economic Botanist and
rose to become the InstituteÕs Director. He was the first Director-General of ICAR. Pal is known for his work on breeding wheat variety (New Pusa 809)
resistant to all the three types of rust disease. He also introduced a high degree of resistance to the smut disease.
He is responsible for starting the All India Coordinated Research Projects for important Indian crops. It is through his initiative that the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources came into existence. Pal was an institution builder, able administrator and a policy maker.
He groomed a large number of scientists, who later became leaders in agricultural research in India and abroad. He had a passion for ornamental plants and wrote authoritative books on roses. Many of the rose varieties bred by him are well-known.
