Vinod Kumar Nallagatla

Vinod Kumar Nallagatla is a doctoral researcher in agronomy at Professor Jayashankar Telangana Agricultural University (PJTSAU), carrying out his field and laboratory research at ICRISAT in Patancheru. His work centers on pigeonpea–maize intercropping under conservation practices such as minimum tillage and residue management in rainfed systems. His research tracks how these practices change soil organic carbon, microbial biomass, enzyme activity, greenhouse gas emissions, and energy use. He has also studied biochar made from pigeonpea and maize stalks for carbon sequestration and soil improvement, and integrated farming system models. He analyzes field data in R and uses machine learning methods, including random forest, support vector regression, and LASSO, to predict crop performance under different management and climate conditions. His work appears in journals including Scientific Reports, Journal of Cleaner Production, and Bioresources and Bioprocessing. On Soil Health Exchange, Vinod answers questions on conservation agriculture, soil carbon and biology, and nutrient management in rainfed cropping systems.