Participatory Approach for Collecting Germplasm (Seed): Experiences with Farmers in remote tribal Villages in Angara block of Ranchi district and Murhu block of Khunti district, Jharkhand
Parth Sarthi
India is a great centre of diversity for different crop and plant species. Many crop and plant species were probably originated in this region. Two hot spots of bio-diversity has already present in our country. Moreover, existence of diversified nature of eco-regions along with different crop genetic resources has made our country resourceful. The eastern part of our country, Jharkhand, is considered as one of the richest sources for genetic stocks like landraces, primitive cultivars, weedy forms of wild species etc. The tribal and remote area of Angara and Murhu blocks in Jharkhand has enormous potentiality of such types of genetic materials. The farmers of these two blocks of different villages knowingly or unknowingly still cultivating such traditional genotypes for consumption and maintaining their livelihood. Collection, trapping, documentation and sharing knowledge with the farmers who are cultivating such types of genetic materials, is one of the challenging tasks to the scientists and plant breeders, otherwise such type of valuable genetic resources could be extinct or loss forever. At present, farmers of those areas are taking up modern varieties in favour of indigenous or primitive cultivars that have different important characteristic features which may be play a vital role in future agricultural development and food security would have been lost for us in this century, and more are threatened. Seeing such situation, the investigation has been made on participatory collection of germplasm (seed) in Angara and Murhu block of Jharkhand and comparatively studied. From the studied areas twenty two rice, four maize, two bajra, four finger millet, three coarse millet, two mustard, one niger, three urd, two arhar genotypes were collected through participatory approach among the farmers. The experiences of farmers during farming and regarding different quantitative and qualitative parameters were also recorded. The study revealed that these collected genotypes could be the valuable resources in the crop improvement programme. Therefore, collection, testing, documentation and conservation should be taken to conserve such types of endangered or threaten crop genetic resources for future generation.
Keywords: Germplasm collection, participatory approach, genetic materials, indigenous cultivar