Breeding of Fruit and Plantation Crops

Cashew

• Cashew : Anacardium occidentale
• Family: Anacrdiaceae
• The family Anacardiaceae comprises about 60 genera and 400 species of trees and shrubs with resinous bark. Though Anacardium is described as a small genus with only 8 species, over 20 species are known to exist in Central and South America. The species of Anacardium vary largely with respect to size, shape and colour of peduncle and size and shape of nut and leaves. The A. gigantium from Surinam has the biggest apple, whereas A. rhinocarpus and A. spruceanum possessing hard wood are useful as root stocks and A. occidentale is a diploid with 2n= 42.
Germplasm:

• The early attempts for germplasm collection in India were made during 1952-1957 with sanctioning of adhoc schemes in Kerala (Kottarakkara), Karnataka (Ullal) Andhra Pradesh (Bapatla), Assam (Daregaon) and Maharashtra (Vengurla). A total of 1,490 germplasm ac¬cessions have been conserved at National Research Centre on Cashew at Puttur and at different cashew research stations in India, These are primarily indigenous types' selected from the seedling progenies of the limited initial introductions with few exotic types from Brazil, Nairobi, Lindi, Nacala, Mozambique, Ex Tanganya, Singapore, Australia and Republic of Panama. The germplasm collections also include allied species of Anacardium such as A. microsepalum, A. pumilum and A. orthonianum.


• In-situ conservation of cashew germplasm is done only in the Amazon forests of Brazil, the original home of cashew. Subsequent to the establishment of NRCC at Puttur (Karnataka) in 1986, (now it is upgraded as Directorate of Cashew Research (DCR)) germplasm collection through seeds was discontinued. In the National Gene Bank of NRCC, Puttur, ex-situ conservation of 392 clonal germplasm collections are maintained. Similarly, Regional Cashew Gene Bank is established at AICRP on Cashew at Vengurla, Bhubaneswar, Madakathara and Chintamani. Immediate pri¬ority of Indian cashew germplasm programme is to en¬hance the genetic variability through introduction of exot¬ic types from Central America and Brazil, where diverse types including dwarf ones are existing.