Milkha S. Aulakh is Professor in the Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, India. He obtained his Ph.D. from University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada in 1983. He was a Fulbright Scholar and Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, USA; Visiting Scientist with USDA Agricultural Research Service; Project Scientist at International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines; and Collaborating Scientist at Frounhofer Institute for Atmospheric Environmental Research and University of Freiburg in Germany. He is a widely travelled scientist and has delivered invited lectures and participated in various meetings around the globe in 22 countries. His career has been dedicated to research on nutrient transformations and losses in soils, C sequestration, and the environmental impacts of fertilizer use such as leaching of nitrate, phosphate and sulphate, and emission of greenhouse gases. He has quantified and evaluated the effect of crop management practices on leaching of nutrients and emissions of greenhouse gases from agricultural soils. He has also developed economically viable and eco-friendly technologies by the integrated use of mineral fertilizers and on-farm available natural resources such as crop residues, green manures, farm manures, pressmud, with pulses and legume oilseeds in cropping sequences. He developed and tested the acetylene inhibition intact soil-core method; devised and validated a chamber method using coated CaC2 as a source of C2H2 for measuring denitrification losses under field conditions; and investigated the effectiveness of C2H2 to block N2O reduction over prolonged periods. He developed an automated measuring system for screening rice cultivars for methane transport capacity. His path breaking work on role of rice plants in production and emission of CH4 demonstrated promising approaches to mitigate CH4 and N2O emissions from rice fields. Dr. Aulakh has published 90 research papers in 30 national and international journals of repute, 40 book chapters and scientific reviews, and 80 conference proceedings and technology transfer publications. Since 2000, he is on the Editorial Board of an international journal ‘Biology & Fertility of Soils’. He is a recipient of Canadian Commonwealth Fellowship (1980-83), Fulbright Research and Lecturing Award by Council for International Exchange of Scholars, Washington DC, USA (1989-90), Plant Nutrient Sulphur Research Award by The Sulphur Institute, Washington D.C. (1990), International Crop Nutrition Award by International Fertilizer Industry Association, Paris, France (2001), Alumni Honour Award by the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada (2002), and Pierre Becker Memorial Award by Fertilizer International and British Sulphur, London, UK (2005). At national level, Dr. Aulakh is decorated with several prestigious awards including the Rafi Ahmad Kidwai Memorial Prize of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Twelfth International Congress Commemoration Award by Indian Society of Soil Science in 1995, and first IMPHOS-FAI Award instituted by World Phosphate Institute, Morocco in 2002. He is the Fellow of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Indian Society of Soil Science, and Punjab Academy of Sciences.
Professor Aulakh considers the emphasis should be about the environment and possibly undesirable effects that crop production methods may have upon the environment. Soil Science would have a major role in mitigating the problematic effects of climate changes.