Here, we report a Myanmar-Japan cooperative field study exploring plant genetic resources (PGRs) mainly in northern Kachin State and southern Chin State, Myanmar in November 2017. The field study was conducted in the above-mentioned areas where small exploration missions were dispatched, even though crop diversity was expected. Crop diversity has previously been observed in hilly and mountainous areas in Sagaing Region, which border Kachin State and Chin State. There were four objectives of this field study. First, we planned to survey cultivated and useful plants by visiting villages and marketplaces in Putao district of Kachin State. We visited a large basin and the surrounding hills at altitudes of 370 ? 530 m. The major crop in the basin was rice and various legumes, cereals, spices, herbs, medicinal plants, and vegetables were grown in cultivated fields, backyard garden, and in local marketplaces. Second, we intended to visit local villages at higher altitudes of 900 ? 1,540 m crossing higher passes in Mindat district of the southern Chin State and vicinity for survey. Although rice was also an important crop in those regions, its cultivation was limited to terraces in the valleys or small basins where irrigation water was available. There were small sloping cultivation fields near farmers’ houses where various crops were grown, as observed in Putao district. Cultivation of elephant foot yam was recently introduced as a cash crop, which might have led to the loss of traditionally grown crops, such as foxtail millet and finger millet. The third objective was to collect PGRs for food and agriculture. We collected 245 plant samples in Putao district of Kachin State (147 samples), Mindat district of Chin State (89) and neighboring Magway Region (8), and Yangon Region (1) of Myanmar, which included legumes (46), cereals (75), spices, herbs and medicinal plants (28), various vegetables (92), and others (4). The fourth objective was to collect the vernacular names and confirm the utilization methods of the crops and useful plants from an ethnobotanical perspective. Shan, Rawang, Jinghpaw, and Lisu people often used similar crop names within their respective languages in Putao district of Kachin State. Although they live close to other people in the district, they have maintained their own vernacular names for a variety of cultivated crops. Conversely, Chin people use various words for each crop among villages in Mindat district of Chin State. Consequently, we observed a diversity of cultivated and useful plants in Putao district of Kachin State and Mindat district of Chin State. These were collected as potential PGRs to be conserved at DAR Seed Bank in Myanmar and at the Genetic Resources Center (GRC) of the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO), which implements the NARO Genebank Project (NARO GBP) in Japan. We observed the recent introduction of some cash crops, such as elephant foot yam and coffee trees, into the mountainous areas of Chin State, which might have led to the loss of traditionally grown crops, such as foxtail millet and finger millet. Further studies are needed on several wild and/or semi-domesticated Cucurbitaceae and Solanaceae plants used by local people both in Kachin State and Chin State for accurate taxonomic identification and analysis of diversity. It is important to consider introducing cash crops and the possible utilization of traditional cultivated and useful plants in order to develop agriculture in hilly and mountainous peripheral areas of Myanmar such as Putao and Mindat districts.
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ミャンマーKachin州およびChin州における植物遺伝資源の探索収集現地研究，2017年
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