Cereal land-races from Austria and their utilization in plant breeding

Abstract

Land-races are somewhat younger than usually mentioned. Also land-races are not abandoned populations but influenced by a simple continuous, equalizing human selection, as well as by natural evolution. Thus the phenotypical uniformity will be high, while the genetical variability is larger than in commercial bred varieties, but much less than in populations grown in a gene centre. Many effects like resistance, adaptation and continuous annual yield are resulting from the land-race's multiline character, which can be seen as biological model for surviving of agricultural populations. The breeder's effort to isolate certain genes will be troublesome and often less effective because of this multiline symbiosis and genes approaching demand and botanical features of a gone period.