Studies on Pest-Risk Involved in Import of Medicinal Plants

Abstract

Germplasm of medicinal plants introduced through the Bureau comprises
not only species of economic importance, but also of wild and related species.
Tn order to know in advance as to which pests can come with the introduced
material, crop-wise world literature was screened to compile the information
on pests recorded, their nature of damage, life history, distribution, host
range and susceptibility to the available disinfestation procedure and posfible
detection techniques. With this background information, an analysis was
made to pinpoint the pest risk that can be present in the introduced material
of Cassia, Chrysanthemum, Digitalis, Dioscorea, Glycyrrhiza, Hyoscyamus,
Mentha, Olea, Papaver, Plantago, Rauvolfia, Vinca and Withania and in
the likely event, how best to detect their presence at the time of quarantine
examination, and finally how to liquidate them effectively and lower the
quarantine risk so that the much needed medicinal germplasm could be made
available to the users in India.