Category : News
Published : February 1, 2016 - 12:08 PM
Crop wild relatives, the progenitors and kin of domesticated crop species, promise breeders a potent weapon against climate change, says writer Maywa Montenegro in her essay Banking on Wild Relatives to Feed the World.
Maywa investigates the different elements of crop wild relative conservation and utilisation as well as their economic value. Considered as weeds by some, wild relatives have substantial global economic worth of $115-120 billion, such as wild sunflower traits which are valued at US$267-$384 million annually.
It isn’t just the economic value that Maywa details but also the history of wild relatives and the nature of their being. Without the cossetted lifestyle of cultivated crops, wild relatives have evolved as the much hardier cousins, it’s these traits – the toughness, that researchers say could have the potential for producing varieties with stronger vigour. The intermingling of cultivated crops and wild relatives throughout time resulted in cross-fertilization and from that the regular combination of wild genetic traits into the agricultural gene pool. It was the role of farmers to select the best crops to meet the needs of many, a practice that still continues today.
As the world’s infrastructure and markets evolved, the seeds of cultivated crops discovered new paths with exotic plants, but stretched the natural crossing relationship between crops and wild relatives. It was only until developments in plant breeding methods enabled plant breeders to cross crops from a range of habitats and countries that the two were brought back together again.
The gathering of wild relatives from their centres of origin across the globe made way for advances in crops such as cold tolerance in rice which was developed from Oryza rufipogon found in China and a growth-stunting virus of wheat was immunized by Thinopyrum intermedium and Thinopyrum Ponticum.
It is the discoveries of cold tolerant rice and immunized wheat that could continue to pave the way for cultivated crops. Whether a crop needs to become adapted to new threats from pests, diseases or climate stresses, the answer may be “the weeds will feed the world”.
