11 Things Big Ag Crops Can Learn from Their Wild Relatives
In our race to create high-yield, aesthetically pleasing grains, veggies, fruits, and legumes, we’ve domesticated our food supply into a corner: Our modern crops have lost traits that could help them survive disease and a changing climate. Fortunately, much of that genetic diversity has persisted in ancient heirloom and wild plant species. Used to be, few were interested in these passed-over varieties, but now researchers around the world are rushing to conserve them in the hope that they can be crossbred with their less resil- ient domesticated cousins. (It doesn’t hurt that these species can offer tasty flavors, too; you should buy diverse crops whenever you can.) “Every domesticated plant was taken from the wild and adapted to our needs,” says Lewis Ziska, a USDA plant physiologist. Now, he says, the idea is “to go back to the wild and take from that genetic diversity to adapt once again.” Here’s what plants can learn from the forgotten branches of their phylogenetic tree.
This article appears in our "How to Eat Now" package from the August 2016 issue.
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01Maize
High-yield hybrid corn is everywhere, and that’s bad news for genetic diversity. Preserving its wild relatives is key, but maize lines are dying out in Central America. Losing these genetic resources could push a bedrock of our food system one pest closer to collapse.
02Tomato
Wild tomatoes are typically hardier than their cultivated kin. *Solanum chilense*, for example, which grows in arid parts of Chile and Peru, is drought-tolerant and resistant to pathogens like the tomato yellow leaf curl virus, which has hit Florida and could spread to California’s Central Valley as the climate warms.
03Wheat
Researchers are looking at perennials with large root systems that access ground water and therefore require less irrigation. Bonus: They can also act as carbon sinks.
04Carrot
Some wild carrots contain genes for traits like drought and salinity resilience. They can even have more nutrients.
05Peanut
Protein-rich peanuts are key to addressing malnutrition in developing countries. Breeders are using a Bolivian wild relative, *Arachis cardenasii*, to transfer resistance to nematodes, bacterial disease, and fungi into domestic varieties.
06Sunflower
Important as an oil crop around the world, this flower is native to the US, where many of its wild relatives grow. Wild sunflowers of the Southwest can survive in desert climates by blooming in early spring and late summer, missing the hottest time of year. Scientists and breeders have to act fast, though, because an increasing number of wild sunflowers are threatened by habitat loss.
07Potato
Potato virus Y has decimated yields and will likely worsen as it spreads to new areas, aided by a warming climate. One lab has identified mostly forgotten species that are resistant to the virus, and breeders have used those genes to cultivate a resistant potato.
08Apple
While thousands of varieties exist, only a handful are widely cultivated. One wild apple, *Malus sieversii*, is particularly rich in genetic resources. It can thrive in cold and warm climates and is resistant to diseases like fire blight, apple scab, and blue mold.
09Bean
Researchers are looking at traits in wild relatives that have adapted to survive in phosphorous-depleted parts of the southwestern United States and Mexico, and they have introduced them to eastern and southern Africa.
10Rice
Millions of acres of paddies are vulnerable to monsoon flooding. But one ancient variety of rice can withstand weeks underwater, so scientists have crossbred it with Asian rice for this submersion tolerance. And the USDA’s Ziska is studying a species that flowers early in the day, a trait that could increase a crops’ heat tolerance.
11Banana
In the 1950s, Panama disease nearly wiped out the world’s most popular banana variety. Growers switched to a cultivar called the Cavendish banana, but it too lacks genetic diversity and is now vulnerable to a new strain of the fungus. Some wild relatives are resistant to this fungus and could be a key to saving bananas. Again.
