Vol. 10, Issue 6 (2021)

Author(s):
Anant Tamang, Satish Kumar Subba and Sangeet Chhetri

Abstract:
Located in the drier north eastern Ghat region of India, Odisha state boasts around 2,800 species of herbs, shrubs, climbers and trees. The edible fruits of forest lands play an important role by supplementing diet and nutrition to the tribal communities. Large numbers of indigenous fruit crops are used by local inhabitants for their curative properties. Beside their importance for nutritional value and a source of income, diversity of these fruits also has a cultural, social value and contributes to the stability of ecosystems. Cultivation of minor fruits is restricted to small specific areas and they have not undergone conscious phase of domestication or human selection. As minor fruit species are tolerant to many abiotic and biotic stresses they can successfully be grown in disaster and drought prone areas. Rapid modernization with GDP based development has lead to erosion of traditional knowledge of wild crop. Majority of fruit crops are grown in the view of ongoing market demand and not on the basis of traditional culture preferences or agro-ecological condition. Increase in supply of minor fruits in the form of raw material for preparation of different ayurvedic medicine and for food processing would increase the popularity these fruit crops.