Crop Landraces: Present Threats and Opportunities for Conservation

Abstract

Crop landraces are important source of novel alleles which can be utilized for improvement of desired crops. They have variable phenology and moderate edible yield. Landraces provide traits for more efficient nutrient uptake and utilization, as well as useful genes for adaptation to stressful environments such as water stress, salinity, and high temperatures for development of improved cultivars. However, since last few decades, modern agricultural practices have resulted in decline of diversity in crop landraces. Various environmental factors like genetic erosion and local cultivation practices have threaten the landrace diversity. To overcome these threats, certain conservation methods have been adapted, and these methods have been reported to play critical role in conserving crop landrace diversity. Furthermore, there is a need for proper documentation of the information available on remedial measures to cope up with the stress mediated by gene flow to crop landraces. Overall information generated may provide a framework to initiate different approaches for the crop improvement.