Mulberry wild species in India and their use in crop improvement – A review

Exploitation of wild relatives of crop plants to a large extent depends on the efficient use of germplasm resources available in natural habitat and the centre of diversity. The primary objective for breeding is to identify the mulberry germplasm, which will be used as a parent. This includes the performance of individual accessions with regards to their origin, passport data, characterization, and evaluation through a series of tests in field. The crop improvement is the transfer of desired genes and gene combination from unadapted sources into most usable breeding materials. To bring greater diversity into the breeding pool, it requires introduction of exotic and wild materials. The breeders find it difficult to use unadapted materials from wild source. The intermediate materials produced after incorporating the new genes is treated as genetically enhanced materials, which may be useful to develop desired lines. The use of wild mulberry species is limited and concentrated effort requires utilizing them. The variability, secondary and tertiary characters may be identified from the wild gene pools to develop resistant genotypes and to utilize the resources efficiently for crop improvement.