Agronomy, as a recognized discipline of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute traces its origin to the Crop and Animal Breeding Section started in the Imperial Agricultural Research Institute at Pusa, Bihar in 1905. It assumed the status of a Division in 1923 for the purpose of awarding diploma, providing training and managing the institute farm. In 1936, it was recognized as a Research Division with the shifting of the Institute to New Delhi. A one-year training course for agricultural graduates was started in 1936, which continued till 1945. The Division had five sections, viz. soil fertility, vegetable and commercial crops, agronomic trials, farm and dairy, and grassland management in 1940. A two-year Associateship of IARI equivalent to M.Sc. degree was started in 1945, which continued up to 1958-59. Post-Graduate programmes, viz. M.Sc. and Ph.D., were started in 1958. Cattle breeding programme was transferred to dairy farm at Karnal in 1952. Several Divisions such as Agricultural Engineering, Agricultural Extension and Microbiology emerged out of the Division of Agronomy in the 1940s and 1950s. Similarly, several Institutes emerged out of the Division namely, National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal; Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture, Hyderabad; Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute, New Delhi; and the erstwhile Project Directorate for Cropping System Research, Modipuram.