Utilization of Wild Species

Abstract

Wild species have been exploited most often as sources of biotic and abiotic stress resistance. Several varieties of wheat, oat, rice, potato, tomato, sunflower, okra, crucifers, tobacco, snapbean, and maize carry the genes for resistance introgressed from the distant species and related genera at some stage and thus surviving in the field. In wheat, several genes for resistance have been incorporated from Aegilops spp., Agropyron spp., and Secale cereale. The wild species had been an important source for quality traits also and thus a number of cultivated varieties have been improved for this trait, utilizing distant species. The phenological attributes have been improved in Lycopersicon by involving wild taxa, and in potato and barley, haploids have been produced by utilizing the wild species S. phureja and H. bulbosum, respectively, as pollen parents.