December 10, 2010
Nature.com
Searching for wild relatives
A global search to gather and save the wild relatives of essential food crops such as wheat, barley and rice is underway. The Global Crop Diversity Trust, based in Rome, Italy, is today launching the 10-year initiative to preserve the genetic resources of these wild plants, which could be vital in helping make food crops more hardy and versatile in the face of climate change.
“All our crops were originally developed from wild species—that’s how farming began,” says Cary Fowler, executive director of the trust, in a statement....
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