ISHS Acta Horticulturae 676: III WOCMAP Congress on Medicinal and Aromatic Plants - Volume 2: Conservation, Cultivation and Sustainable Use of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants
ASSESSMENT AND CONSERVATION OF INTRASPECIFIC VARIABILITY IN PIPER NIGRUM (‘BLACK PEPPER’) OCCURRING IN THE WESTERN GHATS OF INDIAN PENINSULA |
| Authors: | P.J. Mathew, J.C. Jose, G.M. Nair, P.M. Mathew, V. Kumar |
| Keywords: | Piperaceae, landrace, Kerala, field gene bank |
| Abstract:
The Western Ghats of Indian peninsula is considered to be the center of origin of Piper nigrum, the source of medicinally and commercially very important ‘Black Pepper’. Occurrence of morphologically divergent intraspecific variants of the species has been observed in the region, both in wild and in cultivation. However, no systematic attempt has been made to assess the variability among them. In the present study 50 landraces of the crop were subjected to detailed morphological analysis with respect to 27 characters (12 qualitative and 15 quantitative) in order to assess intraspecific variability of these features. Character states of the qualitative characters exhibited by the landraces were identified visually. The quantitative characters were categorised into three character states based on the property of normal distribution and the following statistical parameters of these characters useful for assessing intraspecific variability – Range, Mean, SD, SE, CV and CD were estimated. The study showed that the species possesses wide range of genetic variability with respect to most of the characters. The field surveys revealed that considerable number of landraces and wild forms of Piper nigrum are facing threat of extinction. Therefore, a field gene bank of the species is being established at the Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute, Trivandrum, aimed at conserving the primary gene pool of the crop, which presently harbours over 50 landraces and wild accessions. | |
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