Professor S. Subbiah, Vice Chancellor of Alagappa University has stressed the importance of protecting the indigenous plant species to preserve the natural eco-system in the country.
Addressing the national workshop and short term training programme on ‘Micro propagation and business commercialisation of Indian medicinal plants,’ organised by the Department of Botany here on Monday, he said the natural eco-system has been eroded owing to over exploitation of natural resources, especially the indigenous species.
“When eco-system is affected, everything is affected. In order to preserve the natural eco-system, the indigenous plant-species have to be protected,” he said. The plant tissue culture strategy has to be adopted for producing genetically pure elite plant population to help in bio-diversity conservation, he suggested.
He said the objective of the two-day conference was to popularise the production of indigenous medicinal plants on a large scale and to distribute the same to agriculturists / producers of indigenous medicines at an affordable cost. “This will create awareness among the people on the significance of Indian medicinal plants,” he added. In the growing ‘back to nature’ concept, the use of local medicinal plants as a remedy to treat many of the common ailments with no side effects was gaining momentum, he added. He said the Department of Botany has established a botanical garden to promote the use of medicinal plants and for the benefit of research scholars.
Professor M. Raveendran, Plant Biotechnology, Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, Coimbatore, in his lecture on “Role of Biotechnology Development of Medicinal Plant Propagation,” said that the management of traditional medicinal plant resources has become vital today.
There was an increasing demand for native medicines and in this context, mass propagation of indigenous species has become a matter of urgency, he said. In thickly populated countries like India, China and South Africa, the demand for medicinal plants is on the increase year-after-year; and it becomes pertinent to propagate to a large extent the plant tissue culture, he said. A manual on “plant tissue culture” was released by the Vice-Chancellor and the first copy was received by J. Jeyakanthan, Syndicate Member.
