Abstract

USE OF TISSUE CULTURE TECHNIQUE IN CULTIVATION OF MEDICINAL PLANTS

Vd. Shraddha Bhujbal*, Dr. Apoorva Sangoram and Dr. Asmita Jadhav

ABSTRACT

Medicinal plants are the most important source of life saving drugs for the majority of world’s population. The safety and affordable remedies in traditional health system has attracted the interest of people worldwide. The goal of “Health for All” by WHO can’t be achieved without herbal medicines. Plants have been important source of food, fibre and medicine for 1000 of years and continue to be so. Even today 50% of people still rely on traditional remedies for their medicine & in India 65% of population in rural area make use of traditional form of medicine to meet their primary health needs. India has 2.4% world’s area with 8% of global biodiversity & it’s one of the 12th megadiversity hotspot countries of the world. Out of 34 hotspot India has two major hotspot the Eastern Himalayas and the Western ghats. WHO has estimated that the present demand for medicinal plants is approximately US$ 14billion/year. The demand for medicinal plants based raw material is growing at the rate 15-25% annually. Due to increase in the demand of herbal medicines there is excess use of common as well as endangered medicinal plants and also the substitute of herbal medicinal plants. In view of the tremendously growing world population, increasing anthropogenic activities, rapidly eroding natural ecosystem etc., the natural habitat for great number of herbs and trees are dwindling. Many of them are facing extinction. Hence, there is need to provide alternate methods to propagate, cultivate & conserve the important medicinal plant & also maintain the balance of ecosystem. To cope up with alarming situation the development in biotechnology has come as a boon. It has been estimated that one third of the global plant species are threatened in different level according to International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN). According to the need list of threatened species 44 plant species are critically endangered, 113 endangered & 87 vulnerable. Global concern about the loss of valuable genetic resource stimulated many new programs for conservation, protection and management of natural resources. Within past few decades, several conservation strategies, have been developed mainly the methods of In situ & Ex situ conservation policy. Ex situ conservation includes preservation & maintenance of living samples outside their natural habitat using techniques such as botanical gardens, seed banks, gene banks etc.

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