DR. A. ANANDA RAO
Central Sericultural Germplasm Resources Centre
Central
Silk Board, (Govt. of India), Ministry of Textiles
P.B.No-44, Thally
Road
Hosur- 635 109
Tamil Nadu, India
Telephone: +91- 4344-522013, 521148,
Fax:
+91-4344-520520
e-mail: [email protected]
Paper contributed to Expert Consultation on Promotion of Global Exchange of Sericultural Germplasm Resources, Satellite session of XIXth ISC Congress, 21st -25th, September 2002, Bangkok, Thailand
Food and Agricultural Organization,
Rome,
2002
Recently the conservation communities of the world nations are making concerted efforts to strengthen and streamline biological diversity which hold a key role in the global negotiation after the two major significant international conferences i.e. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) organised by United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) at Rio de Janeiro, Earth Summit in 1992 and the Forth International Technical Conference on Plant Genetic Resources of Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of United Nation held in Leipzig, Germany in June 1996 where the global action plan for the conservation of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (PGRFA) was developed.
The concept of biodiversity conservation and gene bank maintenance have gained great momentum in the recent times and the biodiversity wealth are considered as common heritage of mankind and “Sovereign Rights of the Nations”. The issues related to access the plant genetic resources and its sustainable use, benefit sharing; farmer rights are being deliberated at various national and international fora. Plant Genetic Resources (PGR) comprises the total genetic diversity of the crop plants and their gene pool including adopted local landraces, wild relatives to elite breeders material, which forms a key component for sustainable development of any agricultural crop.
India is recognised as one of the twelve-mega biodiversity centres of the world and harbouring 11.9% of the world flora. Mulberry belongs to the fig family Moraceae under the order Urticales that is considered to be advanced in the woody flowering plants. Mulberry (Genus Morus L.) with high biomass production and protein rich foliage not only nurturing the entire sericulture industry in India besides, used extensively in agroforestry and horticulture programmes. India has attained the status of second largest silk producer in the world with galloping strides of raw silk production (15,000 metric tonnes accounting 16.1%) after China. Mulberry leaf production has been tremendously increased from 15 to 60 metric tonnes/ha/year due to the incessant development of ideal plant types through intensive breeding system utilising diverse germplasm material. The need for diversity is continuous because of fast changing of the global environment. The scarcity of land and water will be the major constraints in future and development of varieties suitable for different agro climatic conditions are utmost important for sustainable development.
Mulberry is native to temperate Asia and North America. Presently Morus L. grows in warm climatic zones between 50°N latitude and 10°S latitude (Yokoyama, 1962) which includes Sino-Japanese region of the old world and rocky mountains southwards to Andes of continental America in the new world and distributed over 29 countries or more. So far there are about 150 species of genus Morus have been described (Vide Index Kewensis, London) and presently 50% of them have been reduced as synonymous or varieties of the same species. Today Morus comprises about 68 recognised species and distributed in different countries mainly from Asian countries like Japan, China, India, Korea and Taiwan. Continental America is also rich in Morus species. Vavilov, (1926) while reviewing the Centres of Origin placed genus Morus L. in China, Japan and Korean region. The world distribution of genus Morus is given in Table-1 and 2 (Sanjappa, 1989 and Dandin et al. 1999). Exploration of wild Morus species in crop improvement programmes has been greatly thought and major exploration activities in the Centers of Diversity were undertaken to collect wild species to supplement the genetic variability. Explicitly, Japan made spectacular advances in crop improvement utilizing putative genes form wild relatives of Morus species. Morus multicaulis species is widely used in many mulberry crop improvement programmes in Japan, India and china. The potentiality of American species and the isolated Morus species from different countries like Africa, Middle East, Thailand and Indonesia for alien gene transfer should also be looked into for exploitation.
India is situated between 8° to 38°N longitude and 68° to 97°5’E latitude and exhibits wide variations in the altitude from sea level to the heights above vagetational limits in the Himalayas and extremely arid to semi arid in the north-western plains. It is floristically very rich with about 15,000 botanical wealth and out of this about 4 900 (33%) are endemic, which belong to 141 genera, and 47 families distributed over 15 agroclimatic zones (Nayar, 1980 and Sehgal et al. 1990). Great seribiodiversity exists in the entire Sub Himalayan belt, northeastern region, Central Plateau and Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which includes all the sericigenous insects and its host plants. Indian gene centre is very rich in Morus species. Wild relatives of genus Morus are reported to occur in India in tropical and sub tropical Himalayan belt from Indus to Arunachal Pradesh ascending to 1250 m. Hooker (1885) and Brandis (1906) have reported occurrence of four species of genus Morus L. namely Morus alba, Morus indica, Morus laevigata and Morus serrata. Parkinson (1923) reported occurrence of Morus laevigata from Andaman and Nicobar islands. Kanjilal et al. (1940) enumerated three species from Assam and northeast Viz. Morus serrata, Morus laevigata and Morus acidosa. Gamble and Fischer (1957) recorded two species Viz. Morus alba and Morus indica. Nair (1977) documented occurrence of Morus serrata from Himalayas in the Sub Himalayan belt up to an altitude of 3300 m. Rich Morus biodiversity also exists both under natural and managed habitats. Portuguese, British, French, Dutch and Mohammedan rulers in the process of colonization introduced many exotic varieties in the Indian gene centre. Besides, the introduced mulberry germplasm resources from different temperate and tropical countries, which are available in the Research institutes, Universities, and State departments, are also collected to enrich the mulberry field gene bank (Dandin et al. 1992). This unique heritage serving human kind since ages has to be protected and conserved for the present and posterity.
In India, efforts have been made to use primary gene pools constituted predominantly cultivars belong to Morus indica and Morus alba to tailor the desired varieties. However, the promising genes exist in the secondary and tertiary gene pool in the wild species of Morus laevigata and Morus serrata and other wild species can be utilized for gene transfer by applying biotechnological and molecular techniques. Realizing the importance of mulberry germplasm for sustainable development of sericulture in India, Central Sericulture Germplasm Resource Centre (CSGRC) was established in India which is presently holding 908 diverse mulberry germplasm accessions representing 26 countries belong to 13 mulberry species in the ex situ field gene bank. Characterization and evaluation of 628 mulberry accessions has been completed and the trait specific promising accessions have been identified. The germplasm information is documented in the Mulberry Germplasm Information System (MGIS) with query-based retrieval. The first ever catalogue on mulberry germplasm with 328 accessions characterization and evaluation data has been published and also available in the website WWW.SILKGERMPLASM.COM for easy access of the mulberry germplasm material for promoting utilization at global level.
