NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 28: Post supercyclone, Orissa has had a flood of visitors. As governments and private agencies strived to help the state's population, one agency from the Capital was scouring the countryside to look for endangered plant life. This team of scientists was on a mission to help conserve the genetic material of agri-horticultural plants before it was lost due to the devastation.A 1.5 metre-long ginger rhizome and a wild species of paddy was what this group stumbled upon; a find that may one day be a key to disaster-resistant varieties of crops.The find was a bonus for the scientists from the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR). The bureau's brief is to explore and conserve the country's plant heritage and has one of the biggest plant gene bank facilities in the world.Found in the forest reserve of the Simlipal, Dr B M Singh of NBPGR says the size of the ginger, which weighed a couple of kilograms, was unlike anything that he had ever seen. Talking to The Indian Express, NBPGR director P L Gautam said the mission became necessary after several local gene banks were destroyed in the super cyclone. "Plants are very sensitive. There was a lot of flooding and plants like cactus could not survive." Faced with winds moving at speeds between 200 and 300 kmph and continuous rain of 800-1,000 mm for three days, plant materials and tissue cultures in the Bhubaneswar-based Plant Genetic Resource Centre were damaged."It was a well-constructed building. After we heard about the damage, my HoD and I rushed there and we chalked out an emergency plan," said Gautam.A 16-member team of scientists drawn from NBPGR, Central Rice Research Institute, Cuttack and other institutes was asked to report in Bhubaneshwar and they were deployed in different regions with the aim of rescuing agri-horticultural plant varieties."When natural disasters happen, a lot of the genetic material is lost," says Singh who went with the team to Orissa.Given their survival strength, the samples of plant varieties collected will not only augment the bureau's collection but will also enable them in genetic research.The team visited Paradip, Jagatsinghpuri, Cuttack, Ersamma and Astranga Village in Jagatsinghpuri, Balasore, Bhadrak and Simlipal. Talking about the samples of wild paddy species like Oryza nivara, Oryza rufipogon and Oryza granulata recovered in the cyclone's aftermath, Singh says, "These contain wild genes and can be used in crop improvement programmes."Visiting pockets dominated by tribes like Santhals, Kol, Bhomj, Kharia, Gondo and Bathudi, it was but natural for the team to supplement their knowledge of the tribal food and include it in their survey."We have also visited the local markets or haats in forest areas where tribals sell plant produce," adds Singh.The bureau's regular work stems from this phenomenon: As newer and improved varieties of crops develop, several traditional ones disappear. And their genes get lost. For instance, environmentalists blame the disaster in Orissa for the wiping out of the mangrove forest cover on the coastline.Saved in the gene bankTracking down crop plant heritage, the NBPGR gene bank presently houses 1,92,929 varieties of plant germplasm at the institute. The collection which includes traditional as well as new varieties of crops is stored in 12 refrigerated modules at a temperature of -25 degree Celsius, ensuring a longevity of 50 years. Supplementing the collection are cryo-tanks where tropical plant species with high moisture content are stored at -126 degree Celsius in liquid nitrogen. Cryo-preservation used for extinct plant species is said to ensure life of 100 years.
