Naturally occurring variation among wild relatives of cultivated crops is an under-exploited
resource in plant breeding. Here, I argue that exotic libraries, which consist of marker …

Genebanks have the long-term mission of preserving plant genetic resources as an
agricultural legacy for future crop improvement. Operating procedures for seed storage and …

Highlights•Plant breeding programs operate at a scale much larger than most genetic
studies.•Populations of this magnitude are needed to study functional genomics at a systems …

Vast germplasm collections are accessible but their use for crop improvement is limited—
efficiently accessing genetic diversity is still a challenge. Molecular markers have clarified …

Crop gene pools have adapted to and sustained the demands of agricultural systems for
thousands of years. Yet, very little is known about their content, distribution, architecture, or …

Natural variants of crops are generated from wild progenitor plants under both natural and
human selection. Diverse crops that are able to adapt to various environmental conditions …

The genetic diversity of our crop plants has been substantially reduced during the process of
domestication and breeding. This reduction in diversity necessarily constrains our ability to …

Crop wild relatives (CWRs) are weedy and wild relatives of the domesticated and cultivated
crops, which usually occur and are maintained in natural forms in their centres of origin …

The compelling need to increase global agricultural production requires new breeding
approaches that facilitate exploiting the diversity available in the plant genetic resources …

More than half of the calories consumed by humans are provided by three major cereal
crops (rice, maize, and wheat). Orphan crops are usually well adapted to low-input …