dragonlady7 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dragonlady7) wrote2017-04-06 08:07 pm
dragonlady7) wrote2017-04-06 08:07 pm
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Crop Scientists Are Racing to ID the Wild Relatives of Common Food Crops to Create a Climate Change-
via http://ift.tt/2oOohL5:Crop Scientists Are Racing to ID the Wild Relatives of Common Food Crops to Create a Climate Change-Resilient Agriculture:
meadowslark:
rjzimmerman:
Kim Hummer, a researcher for the USDA, looks for wild strawberries on the Oregon coast.
Excerpt:
Across the globe, botanists are working to identify what scientists call “crop wild relatives"—the weedy cousins of our staple foods. Researchers have understood for more than a century that preserving the wild progenitors of domesticated crops is essential for sustaining the genetic resilience of global agriculture. But the current effort is fueled by a particular urgency, and much of the work to identify and preserve crop wild relatives has been undertaken since roughly 2010.
The threat from climate change to food production is at the center of this new urgency. As droughts, extreme rainstorms, and other erratic weather patterns intensify, farmers will need crops that can cope with such stresses. And plants that are wild or weedy—proven survivors—have the traits to meet those challenges. “With global climate change, people are coming to realize that having a broad germplasm collection is a matter of food security,” Hummer says, referring to the genetic material in seeds and plant tissues. “And all of that comes from the wild. Our mission is to preserve this material for all people for all time.“
Click here to continue reading….
meadowslark:
rjzimmerman:
Kim Hummer, a researcher for the USDA, looks for wild strawberries on the Oregon coast.
Excerpt:
Across the globe, botanists are working to identify what scientists call “crop wild relatives"—the weedy cousins of our staple foods. Researchers have understood for more than a century that preserving the wild progenitors of domesticated crops is essential for sustaining the genetic resilience of global agriculture. But the current effort is fueled by a particular urgency, and much of the work to identify and preserve crop wild relatives has been undertaken since roughly 2010.
The threat from climate change to food production is at the center of this new urgency. As droughts, extreme rainstorms, and other erratic weather patterns intensify, farmers will need crops that can cope with such stresses. And plants that are wild or weedy—proven survivors—have the traits to meet those challenges. “With global climate change, people are coming to realize that having a broad germplasm collection is a matter of food security,” Hummer says, referring to the genetic material in seeds and plant tissues. “And all of that comes from the wild. Our mission is to preserve this material for all people for all time.“
Click here to continue reading….