Biotech Updates

Conservation and Sustainable Use of Crop Wild Relatives

June 1, 2007

Crop wild relatives (CWR) are plants that are more or less closely related to a crop, but have not been domesticated. CWRs are likely to be the progenitors or direct ancestors of crops. The conservation of CWRs has been considered very important for crop improvement because these plants contain many important and useful traits, such as resistance to abiotic and biotic stresses.

Several activities aimed in conserving CWRs are being conducted through national and international initiatives. However, there are also numerous constraints in implementing conservation programs for CWRs. These are reviewed in the paper published by the group of Vernon Heywood in the journal Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment.

Heywood and colleagues presented that among the issues that needs to be addressed in CWR conservation include the need for information systems, the incorporation of the conservation of CWRs into existing plant genetic resources programs, the assessment of the effectiveness of conservation actions, and policy development and legal framework.

For the complete paper, please visit http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2006.12.014.