Popis: |
Vegetables are power house of essential nutrients and form a widely diverse food group. They act as protective food due to various bioactive compounds which are very much essential for healthy diet. Breeding nutri-rich vegetable crops is need of hour to meet nutrional security. Wild relatives of the crops are potential sources of high bioactive compounds which can be explored in breeding programmes. In Solanum spp., Solanum pimpinellifolium and Caro red (Rugers x S.hirsutm) are rich for Vitamin A, S.pinnelli for high Ascorbic acid, S.chilense and atrovillacium (ATV) from S. cheesmaniae are good sources of anthocyanin content which are being explored as potential donors in breeding. Several acessions in related wild spp of tomato; S. pimpinellifolium, S. chmielewskii and S. cheesmanii, with much higher concentrations of 9-15% Total Soluble Solids which acne be explored in improvement of modern tomatoes. In chillies, Capsicum chinense, C.frutsecens are good source of high capsaicinoids. Several land races in the related wild spp of Capsicum such as Bhoot Jolokia and Dhan Jolokia (Capsicum chinense and Capsicum frutescens) with high capsaicionoids have been reported which have high potential in breeding hot peppers as these are highly cross compatible with C.annuum. In several other crops, wild spp/ related sps are found to be rich sources of nutraceutical compounds such as Solanum aethipicum accession S00197 for high antioxidant activity, Cucumber species Xishuangbanna gourd (C. sativus var. Xishuangbananesis) for beta carotene. Momordica dioca and M. cochinchinensis are rich sources for protein and lycopene respectively. In Brassica species B. villosa is donor for Glucosinolates. B.villosa/ B.drepanensis and B.atlantica had predominantly 3-methylsulphinylpropyl, 3-methylthiopropyl and 2-propenyl glucosinolates, respectively. In legume crops, common bean wild relative species Phaseolus coccineus and P.dumosus are richest sources of Iron (127 ppm). the wild spp/ wild relatives being richest sources of nutraceutical compounds can be explored in crop improvement programmes through wild hybridizations, in identification of QTLs and markers associated with the nutraceutical compounds for further use in marker assisted breeding. |