Large-scale Characterization for Management and Utilization of Indian National Genebank Collections

Abstract

Globally, plant genetic resources (PGR) are the key biological resources having great potential to meet the challenges of food and nutritional security. ICAR-National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR) has been working with a network of 10 regional stations located in different agro-climatic zones of India for the management of genetic resources. The linkages established with CGIAR centres, national crop-based institutes and state agricultural universities are the backbones of PGR utilization. NBPGR characterizes and evaluates germplasm conserved in the Indian national genebank for different traits and provides material to breeders. The effective utilization of PGR in crop improvement programmes depends mainly on their systematic characterization and evaluation, and identification of potentially useful germplasm. To date, we have characterized more than 2.35 lakh accessions of different agri-horticultural crops and developed core collections for the effective management of a large number of accessions. Presently, our focus is on the large-scale characterization of entire germplasm conserved in the Indian National Genebank and detailed evaluation of prioritized crops; identification of reference sets and core sets for enhanced utilization.