Plant genetic resources management under emerging climate change

Abstract

Plant genetic resources (PGR) are the basic raw materials required to cater current and future needs of crop improvement. Climate change is expected to result in increased frequency of abiotic stresses like drought, heat stress, submergence, increased soil salinity etc. The negative impacts of climate change are visible in the form of declining crop productivity, shifting in crop suitability areas, species migration and extinction, emergence of new pests and weeds and altered phenology. Already, the existing genetic base of our crops and varieties has shrunken, and in future we may find it difficult to cope with new climatic challenges with the existing information on genetic resources. Consequently, food and sustainable livelihood security of larger section of populations is jeopardized. Substantial knowledge and insight is, therefore, needed to gauge what types of diversity now exist in the gene banks, and what will be needed in the future. There is a need to assemble and screen germplasm strategically and discover new sources of variations which will enable us to address the very pertinent issue of climate change. Strategies like genetic enhancement/ pre-breeding using crops wild relatives, developing core sets, focused identification of germplasm, mapping and cloning gene and gene constructs, allele mining, bioprospecting for novel biomolecules, and promoting on farm conservation in order to allow genes to evolve and respond to new environments would be of great help to mitigate the climate change impacts. There is also need to mobilize national and international opinion to make food security and poverty alleviation central in climate negotiations.