Breeding of Fruit and Plantation Crops

Diversity in Horticultural crops

 
• Genetic resources constitute the foundation upon which horticulture is based. Of these, the least understood and most undervalued are the Horticultural Genetic Resources (HGR). These resources consist of diversity of genetic material in the form of traditional varieties and modern cultivars grown by farmers as well as wild relatives and other wild plants occurring in nature. Over the years, hundreds of different plant species have been domesticated and within each species, human and natural selection have combined to produce thousands of different varieties. In developed world, ‘primitive cultivars’ or ‘landraces’ have given way to more productive, uniform, modern cultivars.
• Another important aspect of HGR is their requirement of specific management strategy. For instance, some genetic resources can be conserved in seed genebank while others will need field genebank, some genetic resources are propagated by seed, whereas others by vegetative methods and some genetic resources are annual herbs while others are perennial trees. Therefore, management of genetic resources of horticultural crops is gigantic task throwing both challenges and opportunities which cannot be accomplished by one or a few institutions but a large number of institutions are required to join hands together.