Introduction, Collection, Evaluation and Utilization of Fruit Germplasm

In order to strengthen the germplasm pool of various fruit crops, steps were taken to collect, evaluate, maintain and utilize as commercial cultivars, rootstock and breeding material in crop improvement programmes. Germplasm of 25 fruit crops numbering 1529 accessions were collected from various exotic and indigenous sources, and evaluated for various purposes in the last 50 years at the. Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. In all, 88 accessions have been utilized for one or the other purposes. It is a matter of interest that out of 979 collections made from exotic sources only 92 (9.39%) survived in the field/nursery as against 38.2% survival in indigenous collections. This indicates that more care is needed to handle exotic germplasm in our country and make duplicate sets of material available at different places to avoid risk on their survival during various phases of their growth and development.