Native Plant Conservation Campaign News: Conservation of genetic diversity and crop resilience best accomplished in the field – Scientific American

November 28, 2018

 

Genetic diversity is key to maintaining a resilient and sustainable food supply. NPCC News has reported on the dangers associated with widespread planting of genetically homogeneous crops. Genetically diverse crops are more resistant to pests and diseases, and more resilient in the face of stressors such as climate change. They also often require fewer chemicals and less water. Conservation of native plant communities, and of the crop wild relatives they contain, is one of the keys to securing a stable food supply for the future.

 

Scientific American has reported on a recent study by Mexico’s National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity examining the remarkable genetic diversity in Mexico’s corn crop.

 

The study found that small farmers, who domesticate wild corn relatives, save the seeds and grow corn in a range of environmental conditions, both conserve and amplify corn diversity. “The domestication of native maize across a wide range of temperatures, altitudes and slopes has allowed rare mutations to take hold that would otherwise disappear”, notes the lead researcher.

 

Researchers calculated that in 2010 alone family farmers in Mexico grew approximately 138 billion genetically different maize plants.

 

This kind of diversity is rarely seen in the U.S.—the world’s largest producer of corn, Scientific American stated. “You go to a farm in Iowa and there may be three million plants, but they’re all genetically identical,” says Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra, a plant geneticist who studies the evolutionary genomics of maize at the University of California, Davis, and did not participate in the research. Because American farmers buy their seeds instead of cultivating their own, “there’s no chance for evolution to do its thing,”.

 

In Mexico, many farmers refuse to use commercial hybrid seeds. They are too expensive, and they need more water and attention than the native maize does.

 

The authors said that conserving genetic diversity in the wild is essential. “Packing seeds in storage facilities gives researchers a snapshot of what crops looked like at a certain point in time. But there is no guarantee the genetic diversity represented by those samples will be relevant for the environments humans will encounter in the future.“