Role of plant genetic resources in sustainable agriculture

摘要

Plant genetic resources are the backbone of agriculture which play a positive and unique role in the development of new cultivars including the restructuring of existing ones. Genotypes which could withstand better under abiotic and biotic pressures,are the keys for sustainable agriculture. Gene for such traits are often available In wild species and land races. Studies on genetic diversity of wild crop relatives have been carried out and there are 326 wild crop relatives in India. The informationsneeded to formulate a breeding plan for sustainable agriculture included in the present paper are genetic diversity, endagered plant species, species diversity and ecosystem stability, global floristic diversity in food plant, genetic resources in India,wild collections of major crops, plant genetic resources vis-a-vis crop breeding emphasis and conservation of plant genetic resources including new plant genetic resources. Till April, 2006, total number of accessions were 320,728 for different crops including cereals, millets and forages, pseudocereals, grain legumes, oilseeds, fiber crops, vegetables, fruits, medicinal and aromatic plants, species and condiments, agroforestry duplicate safely samples. These accessions were stored for long term storage in the National Gene Bank and may be utilized in future for developing the genotypes which could tolerate biotic and abiotic stresses.