Abstract

In post-war planning it is important to tap all the possible plant resources of the country. Many of the agricultural departments are mainly concerned with the breeding of improved strains of crops of major importance. For some time the plant breeders wore concerned with the cultivated plants only in their breeding programmes but later, some of the wild allies came in as parents in hybridisation. The importance of wild plants in such breeding programmes was more than emphasised by the survey of plant resources of the world by Vavilov. His work is by no means complete and India is yet an unexplored region. The survey has two main objects: (1) to investigate the possibilities of directly bringing the plant under cultivation and utilising the economic product it yields. (2) to use it as a parent in hybridisation programmes so as to transfer one or more of its valuable characters to its cultivated ally. Valuable progress has been made in Russia in both these directions.

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