On-farm conservation of agricultural biodiversity in Nepal

The basic diversity data of landraces has been found important to monitor the dynamics of crop genetic resource management. The diversity data generated in time and space have been valuable to communtities, scientists and policy managers to formulate and implement conservation strategies of in situ, on-farm as well as ex situ conservation and management of genetic resources. In this paper, we document and summarize the basic diversity data of eight mandate crops of in situ conservation of the agrobiodiversity project in Nepal. We used various parameters of diversity at varietal and genetic levels that had been generated during the project period (1998–2005). The varietal richness, evenness or dominance of landraces was estimated using diversity indices. Similarly, diversity measured at gene level using isozymes and SSR markers is also summarized here. This documentation has been seen as important information for scientists to monitor the crop genetic resources on-farm and for policy managers to develop long-term conservation strategies.