Tea genetic resources in Sri Lanka: Collection, conservation and appraisal

Abstract

At the Tea Research Institute of Sri Lanka' conservation aspects on tea germplasm in ex-situ gene bank as living collection was initiated in 1986. Currently, over 600 accessions are being conserved in field gene bank, and efforts have been taken to characterize, evaluate and utilize them in the tea breeding programme. This paper highlights the significant achievements in the areas of germplasm collection, conservation, characterization and evaluation and their use in tea breeding programme, giving prominence to the cost-effective complementary strategies adopted in germplasm conservation and holistic approaches followed in germplasm characterization to facilitate managerial activities. Over the years, the methods for detecting genetic diversity have expanded from analysis of discrete morphological variants to biochemical approaches and to co-efiicient of pedigree analysis to methods based on DNA markers. This kind of an approach, where genetic diversity assessment is supplemented with a combination of criteria, had provided a better sound base towards efficient conservation, maintenance and utilization of existing genetic diversity in the collection, than restricting to a single criterion. Moreover, the biotechnological approaches in strengthening germplasm activities in using them in a rational manner is also discussed, and the importance of assembling a fimctional core collection of germplasm to enhance the practical applicability of tea genetic resources in current tea breeding programme to address the diverse needs of the gi-owers and the consumer is also highlighted