Erhaltung und Generierung genetischer Ressourcen durch die Entwicklung moderner Landrassen unserer Kulturpflanzen: Wozu wir die Ko-Evolution im Feld brauchen

Summary

Over the past 100 years, the biodiversity within varieties and species of field crops in agriculture has been reduced drastically through plant breeding approaches favouring genetic uniformity for all traits. This has practically eliminated all co-evolutionary proc-esses between hosts and their pests and pathogens. It also does not allow for dy-namic adaptation of plant populations to changing environment e.g. climatic change. Breeders and pathologists have all along pointed out the danger of this approach. Alternative approaches to the pure line breeding have been developed by using com-posite crosses, top crosses and population breeding. These have also been termed “evolutionary breeding”. The need for the reintroduction of diversity within our varieties by producing modern landraces that combine the advantages of the breeding success of the last 120 years and genetic variation is presented and discussed using the ex-ample of a modern composite cross population of wheat.