Molecular characterization of tea germplasm

The objective is to throw light on the existing genetic diversity in tea and help in taking proper action towards its conservation and utilization. This would be achieved through analysing the genetic diversity of existing tea germplasm using the AFLP-based markers. The project involves characterizing about 2000 accessions conserved at the Tea Experimental Station, Tocklai, Jorhat, Assam, and also a few other accessions from other tea research institutes. The AFLP technique would be optimized for tea, which has a comparatively larger genome and this technology would be used in the present analysis.