San Ramon, high copra yielding coconut variety of western ghats of Tamil Nadu

摘要

Collection, conservation and utilization of plant genetic resources and their distribution are indispensable components of crop breeding programmes. Conservation of genetic diversity is crucial, because of the genetic erosion brought about through anarray of causes including introduction of new coconut varieties, shift in farming systems and changing economic conditions. Being a perennial crop with a persistent capacity for sexual reproduction, coconut gene pools serve as a repository for conservation and development of new varieties. Global interests also heavily focus on the identification, collection and conservation of germplasm to safeguard the genetic diversity of the coconut palms grown in India. Field gene banks are the only viable option for ex-situ conservation of coconut largely due to recalcitrant nature of the coconut seed. With this back ground, under the All India Co-ordinated Research Project on Palms centre, Coconut Research Station, Aliyarnagar (Tamil Nadu Agricultural University) initiated a evaluation study of coconut germplasms during 1988. A total of 43 germplasms were planted in non-replicated trial in three sets.