Abstract
Rubber industry in Sri Lanka that extends approximately around 133,000 ha, is largely based on Wickham’s genetic base. Use of genetically improved high yielding planting materials is perhaps the only and cheapest way to increase the yield per unit area. However, due to directional selection carried during past Hevea breeding, the genetic diversity in the Hevea breeding pool has started to narrow down. Non Wickham’s genetic collections can provide genetic diversity and possible desirable genes for plant breeders to overcome this situation. Currently around 8000 accessions of Hevea germplasm have been collected and conserved in Sri Lanka. Majority of them came from the collection of 1981 International Rubber Research Development Board expedition in the Amazonian habitats. The characterization and evaluation of this germplasm was started in early 1990’s and continue until today. Two direct selections to the RRISL clone recommendation has been made in 1994 as GPS I and GPS II. Large number of accessions were used in nearly nine hand pollination programmes carried since 1995 and resulted in development of around 1075 new genotypes which now in various evaluation steps. Ten selected genotypes from 1995 hand pollination programme are now in the advanced stage of evaluation, before the recommendation. The process of characterization, evaluation and maintenance of ex–situ germplasm collection with a wide range of genetic materials for useful trials is in progress.
Highlights
Evaluation of first consignment of 100 germplasm clones at Kuruwita Sub station for direct selections First consignment of 100 germplasm clones was established at Kuruwita substation under small scale level and Morris - Man test tapping was started at the end of year 1989 (Jayasekara, 1989)
Evaluation of genetic diversity of germplasm Importance of germplasm in order to broaden the Hevea gene pool Recently, we have carried out a molecular study to evaluate the genetic diversity of recommended clones
Microsatelite molecular markers were used to determine the genetic diversity of 14 clones which represent all the generations of recommended clones grown in the past few decades; i.e.; early seedling selections of RRIC 100 series, Research Institute of Sri Lanka (RRISL) 200 series and RRISL 2000 series
Summary
Utilization of germplasm in breeding programs in Sri Lanka during 19952014 This ex-situ collection has been used in hybridization programmers frequently from year 1995 onwards aiming to improve the genetic diversity of rubber plantations in Sri Lanka. In this analysis the clone RRISL 2005 which had been derived using non Wickham parental materials (germplasm) showed highest genetic distance to the other clones showing the urgent need of the use of the new germplasm material in future Hevea breeding programs.
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