A Field Study on Plant Genetic Resources of Chin State, Myanmar, in February 2019

This paper describes a field study jointly conducted by Myanmar and Japan in February 2019 to document the plant genetic resources (PGRs) of Chin State, Myanmar. The study was a part of PGRAsia, an international joint research project between the Japanese research institutes and gene banks of Asian countries, consigned by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries to the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO) of Japan. It was implemented under a Memorandum of Understanding between NARO and the Department of Agricultural Research (DAR) of Myanmar, which was originally co-signed in 2013 and extended with an addendum in 2018. Previous surveys have indicated that the diversity of the traditional crops of inland Chin State are on the verge of lost, and in the present survey, we focused on plant resources of the mid-south areas of Chin State, including Madupi District. Based on the findings of a previous short survey conducted by Ohm Mar Saw et al. (2019) in 2018, we focused on areas surrounding the Madupi Township during the agricultural off-season to collect PGRs and associated information. We collected PGRs mainly from the Mindat Township (Mindat District), Madupi and Retzua Townships (Madupi District), and Hakha Township (Hakha District) and a few PGRs from the Pale Township (Yinmabin District, Sagaing Region) and Pyinmana Township (Naypyidaw Union Territory). A total of 178 plant samples were collected which belonged to the following families: Amaranthaceae (five samples), Apiaceae (two), Araceae (four), Brassicaceae (11), Cucurbitaceae (26), Dioscoreaceae (two), Fabaceae (43), Lamiaceae (13), Malvaceae (11), Pedaliaceae (two), Poaceae (42), Rubiaceae (one), Solanaceae (13), and Zingiberaceae (three). The collected PGRs were divided into two subsets – one to be investigated and conserved at the DAR Seed Bank of Myanmar and the other at the NARO Genetic Resources Center of Japan. Interviews with locals revealed that the vernacular names of selected crop plants were similar within a given Township in Chin State but often differed between the Townships. A 2005 field study on wild rice varieties of Chin State reported the occurrence of foxtail millet, and we anticipated finding this millet and were able to collect eight seed samples. However, none of these was viable in a germination test, and this indicates an ongoing genetic erosion of plant genetic resources in the study area.本報告書は2019年2月にミャンマー国チン州で実施した植物遺伝資源に関する日本・ミャンマー共同探索調査の報告である．本調査は，農林水産省委託プロジェクトPGRAsiaの一部として計画され，ミャンマー国農業研究局と農研機構の間の合意に基づいて実施された．ミャンマー・日本両国の協力によるこれまでの食料農業植物遺伝資源の収集調査の結果，チン州内陸部の伝統的作物の多様性が絶滅の危機に瀕していることが示唆されており，マドゥピ県を含むチン州の中南部を対象地域に決定した．ミンダッ県ミンダッ郡区，マドゥピ県マドゥピ郡区とレッツア郡区，ならびにハカ県ハカ郡区で植物遺伝資源を収集調査した．また，チン州以外ではサガイン地方域インマビン県パレ郡区とネピドー連邦域ピンマナ郡区でも植物遺伝資源を収集した．本調査の結果，合計178点の植物遺伝資源を収集した．それらは，ヒユ科（5点），セリ科（2），サトイモ科（4），アブラナ科（11），ウリ科（26），ヤマノイモ科（2），マメ科（43），シソ科（13），アオイ科（11），ゴマ科（2），イネ科（42），アカネ科（1），ナス科（13），およびショウガ科（3）であった．収集された遺伝資源は2つのサブセットに分け，ひとつはミャンマーのシードバンクで保存され，もうひとつは日本の農研機構の遺伝資源センターで保存される．地元の人々へのインタビューを通じて作物の方名（現地での呼称）を聞き取ったところ，各郡区内ではかなり似かよっているが，郡区と郡区の間ではしばしば異なる傾向があることが分かった．今までの調査で多様性が期待されたアワは8点収集できたが，全て発芽せず，近年急速にコンニャクやコーヒー等の換金作物の導入とともに遺伝的浸食が急速に進んでいることが明らかになった．Map 1点, Table 5点, Photo 13