Weeds as a Source of Genetic Material for Crop Improvement Under Adverse Conditions

Abstract

The scientific basis of weedy and invasive traits of weed species along with their evolution is poorly understood. Development and availability of the sophisticated molecular tools provide us liberty to play with different metabolic pathways at molecular level and to transfer the desirable genetic materials into crop plants, thus breaking the reproductive barriers for interspecific and intergeneric transfer of the genetic material. Advancement of the modern biotechnological tools offers tremendous promise for elucidating these important weedy traits in detail and further exploration for the various aspects of crop improvement in “cut and paste” style. Weeds are harder plants, coexisting with crops and out-compete them in almost every aspect. Competitiveness and tolerance to abiotic and biotic factors are the important traits which can be observed among various weed species and can be transferred into crop plants. Coexistence of the weeds with crop plants provide an edge over the other wild species and model species like Arabidopsis thaliana ensuring the better chance of integration of the transferred material and survival of the transgenic with minimum yield penalty. However, success of such approaches requires collaborative efforts from all the corners of weed scientists to bring together expertise in weed science, molecular biology, and plant physiology. In this chapter an effort has been made to point out the useful traits of the weeds which can be transferred into crop plants for improvement along with the few successful case studies.