The science behind tradition

Tradition is a term intimately associated with biodiversity. Traditional varieties, traditional practices of cultivation and traditional environment are examples in support. Tribal people consist of 8.4% of India's total population (1991 census). Tribal habitats are biodiversity-rich, but tribal farmers are resource-poor. Conceptually, tradition and science are two intersecting spheres that overlap on principles. The intersection is conceived to represent reality. Tribal cultivation exhibits some traditional practices with an underlying scientific basis. At the same time, there are traditions of scientific concern needing appropriate modification. Rice cultivation in the Jeypore tract of Orissa provides an example and a case that has been studied in depth. This paper presents a possible synergy between tradition and science and argues that participatory research with poor (tribal) and unreached farmers provides an option to ensure sustainable and improved livelihood to them. Unlike high-yielding varieties technology, this option helps to preserve biodiversity-rich habitats, prevents urban migration and promotes in situ on-farm conservation of biodiversity through its sustainable use

The fallacy behind the use of modified line x tester design

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Some areas where tissue culture can help to widen the breeding base in groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.)

Modern concepts on improving productivity in groundnut lay emphasis on breeding genetically broad based populations particularly to provide some risk cover against pests and diseases. Breeding methods involve making single and multiple crosses and evaluating F2 populations of adequate sizes. Selection in early segregating generation is optimally based on an index involving key physiological, biological nitrogen fixation and yield components. Destructive sampling at earlier stages required for measuring some of those characters makes it difficult to relate them with the yield of plants on which they were measured. Field estimation of nitrogenase activity, an important character indicative of nitrogen fixation, is found to be efficient if it is done on a group of few plants of each genotype; this requirement poses its problems in F2 generation. This paper highlights the utility of tissue culture in increasing population sizes for tackling some of these problems

Conservation of plant genetic resources - some views

Indian Journal of Plant Genetic Resources Year : 1991, Volume : 4, Issue : 1 First page : ( 12) Last page : ( 21) Print ISSN : 0971-8184. Conservation of plant genetic resources - some views Arunachalam V. Division of Genetics, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi-110 012. Abstract Conservation is as vital as collection of genetic resources. How much and how best to conserve remain live problems. Conservation strategies have evaluation as one of the main components. Criteria to identify duplicates in collections still need to converge. There are chances of generation of new variability in 'static' collections of seed in long term storage. Collections are made continuously straining space availability in gene banks. Modern tools like molecular markers may add more to the number to be conserved. This is because collections whose phenotypic performance is very similar could be identified as distinct based on RFLP variation. This could cause a 'load' to the gene bank. A trade-off has then to be worked out among (a) novel genes to be conserved for their own sake (b) accessions with traits of potential use for breeding in the near future and (c) accessions with possible genetic differences as revealed by RFLP markers whose phenotypic expression is near identical in target environment. Further, in order to sustain the dynamic nature of conservation activity, serious thought should be given to conservation of germplasm complexes and populations. In this context, sampling strategies to conserve maximum with minimum number of samples also assume importance. This paper projects considered views and those arising from published work

Experimental strategy for the improvement of Brassica crops

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Evaluation of diallel crosses by graphical and combining ability methods

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Computer programmes for some problems in Biometrical Genetics. II. Use of canonical variates in deriving group constellations

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Quality of research in science

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Corrigenda to the computer programme for analysis of partial diallel crosses

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On the concept of populations

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