Rucku Gupta

Walnut is one of the most economically important and widely distributed cultivated species for its timber and nutritious nuts all over the world. Due to the huge amount of benefits and demand of walnut dry fruit all around the world, it is produced and consumed in notable quantity. The global production of walnut seeds has increased within a few couple of years and the largest increase is observed in Asian continent. In India, the major walnut growing areas are Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh, with J&K occupying the largest share in total area and production. Breeders over the years have exploited the variation in seedling trees in these areas to select superior genotypes with desirable traits. But on the whole, walnut has remained a low priority crop in comparison to other fruit crops. Therefore, there was an important need to study genetic diversity of this crop for selection of promising genotypes for multiplication, conservation and crop improvement.