Incidence of blast in exotic fingermillet germplasm grown in post-entry quarantine isolation area

The National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR) has been functioning as a nodal organization for introduction and exchange of plant genetic resources of varied agri-horticultural crops for research purposes. The exchange of germplasm has exposed the world to greater risk of introducing exotic pests. Thus, it is mandatory that all the imported germplasmshould be subjected to post-entry quarantine growing to check for the occurrence of exotic disease incidence (Plant Quarantine Order, 2003). The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) imports crop germplasm from different countries for their crop improvement programmes. During 2012, a total of 727 accessions of fingermilletgermplasmwas imported from Nepal (265), Uganda (437) and Tanzania (25). All the accessions from Nepal and Uganda were the cultivated species of Eleusinecorocana, while accessions from Tanzania consisted of wild finger millet species too, viz., E. indica (16 accns) and E. intermedia (4 accns)..

Potential of Wild relatives in Sorghum Improvement through Molecular Approaches

Wild relatives of crops play a key role in the development of high performing cultivars. Of the 22 species comprising the highly variable genus, Sorghum, only one, S. bicolor, is commercially cultivated for food, feed, and bioenergy production. Profitable utilization of wild species however, demands an interdisciplinary, multi-pronged approach to increase the probability of achieving the desired genetic improvement. In the past, plant breeders selected breeding material based on morphological characteristics that were readily observable and co-inherited with the desired traits. However, a combination of morphological and molecular analyses on large samples and smaller samples, respectively, would maximize both information and usefulness. Molecular diversity data can potentially bridge conservation and use when employed as a tool for mining germplasm collections for genomic regions associated with adaptive or agronomically-important traits (i.e., genes that have been important in adaptation to local environments or are associated with phenotypes selected by farmers or breeders. For sorghum, which is constrained by over 40 diseases and 150 insect pests, host plant resistance offers an effective, economical and environment friendly method of pest/pathogen control since it does not involve any additional investments by the resource poor farmers..

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Not AvailableThe National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources Regional Station, Hyderabad has facilitated safe introduction of 356 521 (1986-2010) germplasm accessions of various crops into India. About 60 seed-borne pathogens of quarantine importance were intercepted on crop germplasm during seed examination in the laboratory and post-entry quarantine observations in the field. Of these, the quarantine pathogens, viz. Ralstonia solanacearum and peanut stripe virus in groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.), Peronospora manshurica (Naum.) Syd. and peanut stripe virus in soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.], tobacco streak virus in sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.), Xanthomonas campestris pv holcicola (Elliot) Dye, Burkholderia andropogonis (Smith) Gillis et al. on sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench], Drechslera maydis (Nisik.) Subram. & Jain on maize (Zea mays L.) and Pseudomonas syringae pv tomato (Okabe) Young et al. on tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) were intercepted from different countries. Yield losses that could have occurred were estimated had these pathogens of groundnut, soybean, sunflower, maize, sorghum and tomato not been intercepted.Not Availabl