Establishing core collections for enhanced use of germplasm in crop improvement
2017
h d upadhyaya
H D Upadhyaya, 'Establishing core collections for enhanced use of germplasm in crop improvement', EKIN, Journal of Crop Breeding and Genetics, vol. 1(1), pp.1-12, BISAB, 2017
Show more [+] Less [-]Plant genetic resources are the basic raw materials and their use in breeding is the most sustainable way to conservebiodiversity. Low use of germplasm in crop improvement programs has resulted large gap between the number ofgermplasm preserved in genebanks and the number of germplasm used in crop breeding across the globe. Breeders arereluctant to use germplasm largely either due to lack of reliable information on economic traits besides linkage drag ordue to breakdown of co-adapted gene complexes, which may prolong cultivar development time. The reduced subsets,representing diversity in the germplasm collection of a given species preserved in genebank, in the form of core or minicore collections are the ideal genetic resources for discovering new sources of variations for use in crop improvementprograms. Two decades of research at ICRISAT has led to the establishment of core and mini core collections and theirsubsequent evaluations has resulted in identification of new sources of variations, for example, resistance to abiotic and/or biotic stresses in chickpea, groundnut, pigeonpea, pearl millet, sorghum, finger millet and foxtail millet. Likewise, anumber of nutritionally dense (high protein, Ca, Fe and Zn) germplasm have been identified in finger millet, foxtail millet,groundnut, pearl millet, and sorghum. A few groundnut germplasm with improved oil quality, as determined by variationin oleic and linoleic fatty acids, were also identified. Many of these germplasm were agronomically at par or even superiorover controls and showed specific and wide adaptation. The identified sources may be used in genomics and breeding tobroaden the cultigen?s genepool in these crops
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