P. M. Priyadarshan commenced his research career as a Jr. Scientist in Spices (Spices Board, India) and later worked as Plant Breeder and then as Deputy Director of the Rubber Research Institute of India. As a Plant Breeder, his expertise includes breeding Hevea for non-traditional areas, especially for north-east India, conspicuous with cold stress. He could develop special techniques for breeding Hevea for stressful environments that laid a firm foundation for deriving new clones for these areas. His research interest is primarily in Genetics, Breeding and Genomics. Till date, he authored 53 research papers published in national and international journals including Advances in Genetics, Advances in Agronomy and Plant Breeding Reviews. He edited books on Breeding Major Food staples (Wiley-Blackwell), Breeding Plantation Tree Crops (tropical and temperate species – Springer) and Genomics of Tree Crops (Springer). Besides, he has authored several chapters and reviews dealing with breeding trees that appeared in books by International publishers.
