Concepts
Crop Wild Relatives
Also Known As CWR
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The wild and weedy species genetically close enough to a domesticated crop to be crossed with it, carrying genes for drought tolerance, pest and disease resistance and other traits that generations of selection bred out of the cultivated line. Conserving them, in the wild and in seed banks, is treated as insurance for future breeding as the climate changes.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Wild relatives are concentrated in the same centers of origin where their domesticated descendants first arose.
Breeders cross cultivated varieties with wild relatives to reintroduce lost resistance and tolerance traits.
Seed banks such as Svalbard conserve crop wild relative material alongside cultivated varieties.
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