Germplasm of medicinal plants introduced through the Bureau comprises not only species of economic importance, but also of wild and related species. Tn order to know in advance as to which pests can come with the introduced material, crop-wise world literature was screened to compile the information on pests recorded, their nature of damage, life history, distribution, host range and susceptibility to the available disinfestation procedure and possible detection techniques. With this background information, an analysis was made to pinpoint the pest risk that can be present in the introduced material of Cassia, Chrysanthemum, Digitalis, Dioscorea, Glycyrrhiza, Hyoscyamus, Mentha, Olea, Papaver, Plantago, Rauvolfia, Vinca and Withania and in the likely event, how best to detect their presence at the time of quarantine examination, and finally how to liquidate them effectively and lower the quarantine risk so that the much needed medicinal germplasm could be made available to the users in India.
