b"not be able to adapt to, but now can because of climate change,going to lose the wild relatives, says Warburton.new resistant traits found in wild relatives will be necessary.Two methods in action to help prevent the dwindling of wild In addition to resistance, there is also a desire for new nutri- relative populations and other forms of crop diversity include in tional traits. For example, traits that make the plant healthier orsitu and ex situ conservation. Many gene banks are collecting the higher in protein. The answer still lies in old crop relatives. seeds of landraces from the crops of interest, as well as seeds All of these nutrients that we didn't even know that wefrom wild species that are related to them in hopes to conserve wanted, they probably have genetic diversity in some of theas much genetic diversity as possible. This type of conserva-older material. Even now that we can utilize gene editing andtion is called ex situ because the plant is being removed from GMOs, it's often cheaper, easier and faster to go and look forthe location in which it originally evolved and is kept somewhere that genetic diversity in wild relatives where you can simplyelse. When experts protect wild relatives in their natural habitat make a cross and bring that trait into your new varieties, saysso that they can continue to evolve with their changing environ-Warburton. mental cues, that is utilizing in situ conservation. While wild relatives have been around for a very long time,While these efforts can be effective, neither are a fool proof experts worry that the crucial crops are in great danger.solution.Its an imperfect system. You can't collect everything. There's The Fight to Save Wild Relatives too much out there. It's not a system where you can just say, In the distant past, wild relatives spread across large areas ofOkay, we've got our seed bank, so we can let the plants disap-land, thriving in their natural habitats. Now, land is limited, forc- pear completely in the wild, explains Khoury.ing wild relatives to grow in smaller populations with greaterA better avenue is to adopt complimentary, or integrated, distances between, leaving their diversity vulnerable. Therefore,conservation.the greatest threats to wild relatives are habitat destruction andYou do both. You collect them and put it in the seed banks, modification, according to Khoury. but you also try to protect the populations from further habitat If something comes alonga bad drought year, a newdestruction if you can, he adds.disease or somebody decides to build a parking lot for a newThe journey to protecting crops wild relatives may be daunt-Walmartyou're going to lose that little population. Those littleing, but if all resources combine forcesfor instance, the U.S populations can't interbreed with each other anymore, so theyForest Service (USFS), Bureau of Land Management, botanic begin to become bottlenecked, inbred and unhealthy. Any stressgarden sector, USDA and morethe crucial plants could con-that comes along is more likely to kill them. If you don't set asidetinue to thrive and act as a source of crop diversity for corn and large areas for what's called effective population sizes, you aremany other crops for years to come.SWDigitise, streamline& automate yourfield inspectionGenSCOUT is the all new Android app that transforms how production managers and field inspectors access their assigned work information from the field. Unlike other inspection apps that provide a simple checklist, GenSCOUT offers many features that digitise and accelerate the entire field inspection process. Crop specific inspection tests, free form comment boxes, field walk capture route and image capture, coupled with offline mode allow you to collect all the field inspection data you need, wherever you need. Integrated to our Generation Seed Management software, youre information is kept centralised, accurate, secure, and up to date.Learn more about GenSCOUT!primeticsseed@culturatech.com primeticsseed.com/genscout102/ SEEDWORLD.COMDECEMBER 2022"