Engineering analogs for conservational decisions in restoring abandoned traditional rice varieties in Tamil Nadu

Rapid loss of diversity of food crops has commenced from middle of 20
^th
century. The sustainable production of staple crops in the face of climate change is on the rattle. There is a need for a robust diversified genetic pool of landraces and traditional varieties which have inherent sturdiness against the climatic and edaphic uncertainties. Although the cultivation of traditional varieties especially in South Indian rice has been in vogue till 19
^th
and mid 20
^th
centuries, but its adoption declined drastically driving them to extinction. Hence, to restore and conserve the still extant traditional rice varieties especially in Tamil Nadu, suitable habitats need to be identified. Owing to the qualitative nature of the data of the habitats such as soil type, crop region and type of rocks etc., application of fuzzy model for calculating appropriate habitat suitability index was undertaken. The simulation is done in MATLAB and the results earmarked areas with classes of suitability such as Lowest, Low, Medium, High and Highest possible habitats for conservation and propagation for each of the five traditional varieties of rice chosen in the present study.