Importance of Wild Relatives as Genetic Resource and Otherwise

Abstract

Man has exploited more than 7000 plant species for food and agriculture; of these, 150 species have entered commerce. The main crops that produce food are wheat, rice, corn, barley, sorghum, millet, soybean, groundnut, potato, tomato, grape, sugarcane, banana, watermelon, etc. Wild relatives of crop species in crop improvement have been tried in most commercial crops through interspecific hybridization with varying success. Predominant importance of wild relatives revolves around their capacity to contribute many useful genes and the opportunities they offer for transfer of desirable genes into their congeneric crop/cultivated species modern varieties. Consequently, most major crop cultivars contain genes from their wild relatives. Crop wild relatives are the wild plants that are genetically close to crop/cultivated species. They continue to evolve in wild, with genes conferring traits to resist biotic and abiotic stresses, such as resistance to drought or pest and diseases, facilitating their continued survival even under adverse conditions. These genes can be and have been introgressed into the domesticated cultivated species, by the farmers and breeders through conventional recombinant breeding or modern biotechnological approaches to produce new cultivars with superior genetic potential. Further use shall help face the vagaries of the nature and provide greater economic yield. Thus, wild species have an important role to play in meeting the challenges for the twenty-first-century agriculture, in facing adverse effects of climatic changes, and in finding solution to food and nutritional security pressure of ever-growing population.