Indian Institute of Oilseeds Research (IIOR) has full fledged farm facilities for conducting precision field experiments in various disciplines on sunflower, safflower and castor crops to evaluate under representative situations and for undertaking seed production of varieties, hybrids, parents with the needed isolation and crop rotation. IIOR has three research farms at Rajendranagar and Narkhoda farms for Alfisols and ICRISAT farm for Vertisols. Brief details of research facilities at each of the farms are:
a. Rajendranagar farm
The total area of the farm is 14.5 ha with a provision of 4 ha of irrigation. The farm houses main office building, annexe building, laboratories and hostel, cold storage unit, generator shed, glass and screen houses, transgenic green house, farm store building, farm machinery workshop. The farm also houses wilt sick plots for castor, seed production and storage unit, threshing and drying yard. Entire farm has been well laid out into plots of 0.25 ha and are accessible by black toped roads, underground irrigation pipeline system, drainage provision etc. Entire farm boundary is covered with chain link fence and compound wall. The farm is supported by TSL (19), supporting (6), technical (2), workshop/driver/plumber/ electrician (2) under the overall supervision of Head (FOM).
b. Narkhoda farm
The farm was acquired during 1988 with a total area of 44 ha of typical chalka soil (Alfisol). The farm has a provision of 8 ha of irrigation. The farm houses farm office building, generator, farm machinery for primary and secondary tillage, multi crop threshers and power operated winnowers, large drying and threshing yards, etc. The farm also houses meteorological station and automatic weather station, rooms for individual scientific sections, scientists room, animal shed, implement shed, labour shed, tractor shed, seed processing unit, etc. Field oriented research in the disciplines of breeding, agronomy, physiology on sunflower and castor and seed production are undertaken. Two pairs of bullocks help in intercultural operations. Entire farm has been well laid out into plots of 0.25 ha and are accessible by black toped roads, underground irrigation pipeline system, drainage provision, etc. Entire farm boundary is covered with chain link fence. Two well lined farm ponds help in effective rain water harvesting and utilization. The farm is supported by TSL (48), supporting (2), technical (3), workshop/ driver/ plumber (2) under the overall supervision of Head (FOM).
c. ICRISAT farm
The farm in ICRISAT was acquired during 2001 for the specific field research on safflower in Vertisols. The total area of the farm is 16.2 ha with well laid out fields and supporting farm facilities of post harvest threshing, drying and storage facilities provided by ICIRSAT. Irrigation facilities and irrigation pipeline network in the farm were developed. Apart from specific requirement of Vertisols for safflower and sunflower crops, farm is being used for seed production and effectively satisfies the isolation requirements. The required labour force is hired from ICRISAT and is managed by 1 technical staff under the overall supervision of Head (FOM).