Author(s): Kiran Sagar DC, Shrishail M Vastrad, Sathish BR, Mallappa, Basavaraj T and Nagajyothi GN

Abstract: India boasts a diverse and abundant biodiversity legacy that spans a broad range of environments, including alpine vegetation, tropical rain forests, temperate forests, and coastal wetlands. Four of the world's eighteen biodiversity hotspots - the Western Ghats, the Eastern Himalaya, the Western Himalaya, and the Nicobar Islands - are located in India. Four of the world's eighteen biodiversity hotspots - the Western Ghats, the Eastern Himalaya, the Western Himalaya, and the Nicobar Islands—are located in India. Our legacy, biodiversity, which represents variation among genetic resources at the gene, population, species, and ecosystem levels, is essential to both sustainable development and well-being. While several institutes also do conservation in field gene banks, NBPGR is the main organization in India responsible for managing germplasm on fruits. In addition to field gene banks, cryobanks and in vitro tissue culture are methods used to preserve temperate fruit germplasm. International breeding efforts to create novel cultivars or rootstocks, mainly for banana, citrus, and mango, have also made use of Indian material. Classical examples of the global usage of Indian fruit germplasm include the creation of Floridian mangoes in the United States, the use of Indian citrus rootstocks globally, and the use of Indian banana genotypes. In the past, NBPGR introduced 5,687 accessions of 104 fruit crop species comprising temperate, tropical and sub-tropical fruit plants during 1976 to 2023. However, In order to support the preservation of cultural traditions and to make it easier to conduct research into the history of food and novel food sources, it is necessary to gather and share this knowledge. The detailed information on Germplasm conservation, genetic improvement and evaluation of genetic resources for development of improved varieties in fruit crops are presented in this chapter.

DOI: 10.33545/26174693.2024.v8.i1Se.346