Genetic resource management and utilisation of horticultural crops in India – A perspective

Plant genetic resources (PGR) of horticultural crops in India exhibit enormous variability which can be attributed to the existence of 15 different agro-climatic zones/regions in the country coupled with diverse socio-economic, cultural and ethnic needs. With an aim to conserve this diversity for future use, during the period 1976 to 2018, a total of 2,697 multicrop or crop-specific explorations were undertaken and a total of 2,71,664 accessions (of which, 35,562 are wild germplasm) have been collected from different agro-ecological zones/habitats. In addition, a total of 40,000 trait-specific accessions were also introduced during last decade. Among this group, vegetables and seed spices possess orthodox seed storage behaviour are bankable in seed genebank. Other horticultural crops are quite often recalcitrant and conserved in field genebank or in vitro/cryo genebank. Specific quarantine measures and protocols have also been developed against exotic and indigenous insect-pests and weeds in these crops. Efforts at national level are required for the development of field genebanks of horticultural PGR. Further, trait-specific evaluation of this existing variability conserved in genebanks as per changing needs and utilization of identified trait-specific material in the crop improvement programmes are the ultimate goal of management of Plant Genetic Resources of horticultural crops. Some efforts have been made in this direction particularly in vegetable crops where more than 12,000 accessions have been characterized and evaluated for various traits. But with increasing population, changing climate scenario, competition in international market and paradigm shift in the focus from food security towards nutritional security, further make characterization and evaluation of PGR of these crops a necessity with development of core sets (may be location specific) or trait-specific reference sets for their effective utilization. So, this review covers various aspects of management of PGR of horticultural crops.