CORE SUBSETS OF BASE COLLECTIONS AND PRIORITIES OF NATIONAL PROGRAMS - INDIAN PERSPECTIVE

The establishment of representative core collections and back-up reser ve collections was proposed to facilitate effective management and to promote utilization of large base collections. The priorities of the d eveloping national PGR programmes, in the organization of components o f their base collections, are different from those of IARCs since the strengths as well as limitations of the two systems vary. Unlike most IARCs, national programmes have the option of networking their active collections, maintained at several eco-sites, and linking this network to the base collection kept under long-term storage. This keeps open the option to develop situation-specific subsets for an effective germ plasm utilization. There is a pressing need for a scientific re-examin ation of the concept of germplasm core in order better to apply it in developing core subsets in the national PGR programmes. The formulatio n of situation-specific subsets is advocated, as the system would be d irected to users' requirements or addressed to gene bank managers' res ource constraints. Arguments given in favour of developing core subset s, rather than a single core are: (i) logical; (ii) population genetic ; and (iii) germplasm usage considerations. The Indian PGR programme a nd the emerging core context are briefly discussed, along with feature s of a programme designed to develop such core subsets.