Crop Wild Relatives in India: Inventorization, Prioritization and Conservation
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Abstract
Identifi ed as a critical component for food and nutritional security and environmental sustainability in the current
century, crop wild relatives (CWR) warrant species-level prioritization and meaningful germplasm conservation.
A rough-and-ready approach placing all other species of a crop genus as CWR is unacceptable, as it would lead
to the listing of many unrelated species, also conversely, in some crops, the search has gone beyond the crop
genera. Initially, based on overall closeness with the crop as well as their potential for use, a total of 861 Indian
CWR taxa (769 species) were prioritized for 171 ICAR-mandated crops falling under 14 crop groups. Further
prioritization was made on shortlisted taxa, based on the economic importance of crops per se, level of closeness
to crops (cytogenetically/morphologically/molecularly), possessing traits of breeders’ interest, or already under
wide-hybridization programme, and the extent of distribution/threat. This resulted in the identifi cation of 292
taxa (257 species) belonging to 85 crops. These high-priority taxa were further analyzed for conservation gaps