In 1948 he was deputed to study at the University of California, Berkeley, obtaining his MS (1949) and PhD (1951) as a student of Ray Fred Smith.

[4] He visited the Commonwealth Institute of Biological Control, Belleville in Canada, the Citrus Experimental Station at Riverside, and the Gill Tract Laboratory at Albany for Biocontrol.

His studies were influenced by Paul DeBach and he tended to avoid chemical measures,[6] favouring biological control and cultural practices in management.

Channabasavanna and others he discovered the existence of the ladybird Cryptolaemus montrouzieri in large numbers on Araucaria in Bangalore in July 1951 and noted that although it had been introduced in India in 1898 to control mealybugs, it had been recorded as not having established.

[17] In 1936, he married Saraswathamma daughter of Hanumanthe Gowda of Torehalli who taught at a school in Gubbi taluk and edited the ''Vokkaligara'' magazine.