First Fungal Culture Bank
A sustainable mechanism for future stewardship of valuable scientific resources especially microbial cultures promotes long term studies essential to independent replication and ensures credibility of findings. The 1 st Fungal Culture Bank of Pakistan is working with the Department since June 2003 with the following objects:
1. Conservation, identification and preservation of local mycoflora
2. Supply of authentic cultures to
researchers on nominal charges all
over the country.
3. Collaboration with international microbial culture banks.
Bank has the honour to own well over 700 fungal accessions. It is regularly publishing a quarterly newsletter "MYCONEWS" since June 2003. In addition Research Bulletins have also been published so for. FCBP has also the honour of holding a week long workshop on Identification and Conservation of Micromycetes for in service training of young lecturers and researchers from 23-28 August 2004 with the financial support of HEC. It has provided internship training to two students of Punjab University and one of the Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi on isolation in pure culture. It is registered with three international organizations namely World Data Centre for Microorganisms (WDCM), World Federation of Culture Collection (WFCC) and Microbial Research Center (MRCEN). It has entered in a new phase after approval of its PC1 by Higher Education Commission of Pakistan for its up-gradation. Now we are aimed to upgrade the Fungal Culture Bank of Pakistan into a National Microbial Culture Centre. We have already started culture collection of bacteria and would like to add viruses and nematode cultures as well.
Herbal heritage garden
A project with the name of Herbal Heritage Garden is running under this department. Main objectives of the project are:
To collect and conserve herbal
flora of Pakistan .
To select most important
medicinal plants for propagation on mass scale. To develop tissue culture techniques for these selected medicinal herbs for their mass propagation. To extract natural active ingredients from the important medicinal herbs.
The garden has over 200 collections of herbs and surveys for the collection of more species are in progress. So far these plants are being collected in the Department. In future they will be planted in the field soil of the Garden. A building with many laboratories is under construction and is likely to be completed before the closing of this year. The extraction unit for future research on active components is under development in cooperation with PCSIR Laboratories Pakistan.
Shisham Decline
Shisham (Dalbergia sissoo Roxb.) of family Papilionaceae is an important plant of great economic importance. Its wood is very hard and is best suitable for furniture. This precious tree has been inflicted with dieback or decline in recent years. Department of Mycology & Plant Pathology is actively working on the problem and considerable work has been done. A through survey of four districts was carried out in 2003 to investigate for the causes of decline. Later on in 2005 an intensive survey of the entire province of Punjab was undertaken and data regarding dieback incidence and severity was collected from all the main SHisham plantations as well as from agricultural farms, and along roadsides and canal banks. It was found that drought, high soil moisture and fungal pathogens are responsible for the menace. Two diseases viz. wilt and dieback were recognized. Benomyl was recommended for the control of wilt in young plants of about 10 year old. On the bases of variations in different morphological characters nine different varieties of shisham were initially identified among which some are documented as resistant varieties against the dieback. The authority of these findings was established through DNA typing test performed at NIBGE. Later on nine more varieties were identified. We are now looking for disease resistant plants derived through multiplication of resistant varieties or enhanced plant breeding and/or genetic engineering which are cost effective and environmentally sound strategies for plant disease management in future. Biological control of pathogen responsible for the disease is another aspect on which department is working on.
