Abstract
Colchicum luteum L. is an economically important and endangered medicinal plant of the Kashmir Himalaya. The corm extract is used for the treatment of rheumatism, gout, Behcet’s syndrome, and Alzheimer disease. It is also used extensively in plant breeding programs for the doubling of chromosomes. The present study was carried out for two years (2017–2019) to study the genetic diversity of C. luteum, an economically important and endangered medicinal plant of Kashmir Himalaya. The mapping of genetic diversity of C. luteum was estimated using Mahalanobis D2 analysis in the Aharbal (Kulgam), Dhara (Theed), and Baera Baal Hills (Harwan) of Kashmir Valley. The results showed the presence of 5 clusters for 30 populations. There were 17 populations in cluster-1, 1 in cluster-2, 2 in cluster-3, 3 in cluster-4, and 7 in cluster-5. The majority of the population was a group in cluster-1 followed by cluster-5. The maximum intracluster distance (D2 values) was observed in cluster-5 (46.55588) followed by cluster-3 (41.61871), and the maximum inter-cluster distance (D2 values) was observed in cluster-3 (46.55588) followed by cluster-5 (41.61871). Our study revealed that plant species possessed sufficient genetic diversity among the populations. Cluster-5 showed superiority in plant−1 respect of the maximum mean plant height (28.46 cm), leaf area (47.0 cm2), number of seeds plant−1 (26.85), corm length (5.15 cm), corm width (3.17 cm), fresh weight of corm plant (6.87 g), and dry weight of corm plant (4.81 g) as compared to other clusters. Out of five clusters, cluster-5 is a promising one for better yield and yield attributing traits. The present study revealed that plant species possessed sufficient genetic diversity among the populations as 30 populations were arranged into 5 clusters. Therefore, cluster-5, consisting of seven populations from the undisturbed area of Harwan, and consequently the populations from the same cluster can be multiplied for initiating a conservation and breeding program and can serve as a tool for the scientific community to evolve better contemporary varieties of C. luteum with profitable characters such as more yield of corms, etc. This will assist farmers, particularly the marginal farmers, to alleviate their income.
Highlights
The use of medicinal herbs by humans to cure different ailments is time immemorial.These herbs have large curative significance and use as medium and equitable sources for a better and healthy life [1,2,3,4,5]
The study on estimation of the genetic diversity of C. luteum was conducted for two years (2017–2019) at Division of Environmental Sciences, SKUAST-K, Shalimar, J&K
Genetic diversity was estimated from the data pooled dry weight of corms
Summary
The use of medicinal herbs by humans to cure different ailments is time immemorial These herbs have large curative significance and use as medium and equitable sources for a better and healthy life [1,2,3,4,5]. With rising global population and crop consumption, 20% of their natural resources have been previously wiped out [10,11,12]. Though this threat is not new, the rate of species loss and habitat destruction is increased several folds worldwide. Colchicum luteum L., commonly known as Suranjan-e-Talkh (Urdu), comes under the family Liliaceae [18]
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