Trait-specific Amaranth Germplasm—Potentialities to Combat Climate Change

Amaranth has great potential to combat climate change and malnutrition. It is receiving attention now-a-days because of its high nutritional value, rapid growth, adaptability to a wide range of climatic and soil conditions. It has traditionally been part of barter system in the Himalayan region. ICAR-National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (ICAR-NBPGR) has base collection of 5, 804 accessions of amaranth representing 26 species. This vast genepool is available to the breeders, but due to large size of the collection and lack of detailed information on unique traits, there has been minimum use of germplasm in breeding programmes to develop new varieties and hybrids. Hence, genebank curators collated the trait-specific information from different sources to make an useful compilation for the breeders. A total of 623 accessions of amaranth representing different biotic and abiotic stress resistance (12), quality traits (106), agronomic traits (449), other traits (27), released varieties (27) and registered germplasm (2) are conserved in National Genebank (NGB). This compilation will enhance the utilization of diverse amaranth germplasm in future crop improvement programmes to develop climate-resilient varieties.