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Scientists improve crops with genes found in crop wild relatives (CWR): wild plants that are taxonomically related to domesticated crops. These relatives may carry adaptations to drought, heat, flooding, poor soils, pests or diseases that are absent from, or not expressed in, cultivated varieties.
A wild plant is not a ready-made crop solution. Researchers must locate and conserve suitable populations, test samples in controlled and field trials, cross promising material with crop varieties, and select through repeated generations. This pre-breeding process produces crop-adapted lines that other breeders can use more readily.
What are crop wild relatives?
Crop wild relatives are wild taxa related to cultivated food, feed, fiber or industrial crops. A wild relative may be the same species as a crop’s undomesticated population or a closely related species that can still contribute useful genes through breeding.
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The useful feature is genetic diversity, not simply wildness. A population from a dry region may include plants that maintain growth with little water, while another from a saline coast may contain salt-tolerance mechanisms. A wild sunflower population may carry resistance to a pathogen that is absent from cultivated lines. Researchers still have to prove that a suspected adaptation is inherited, effective in a crop background and acceptable alongside yield and quality.
How a wild plant becomes breeding material
The pathway from a wild population to a useful crop line is a sequence of discovery, conservation, testing and breeding. The order matters because a promising collection can fail at any stage.
- Define the breeding problem. A program identifies a target such as resistance to a named disease, improved growth during drought, tolerance of cold or salt, or better performance in poor soil. A precise target determines what environments and tests are relevant.
- Find candidate populations. Scientists search collections, herbarium records, genebank inventories and new field collections for related species and populations that may have experienced the target stress. Species identity and collection location are essential for interpreting a sample.
- Record passport information. Passport data normally include the species, collection site and other details about a sample’s origin. Location-linked information such as altitude, temperature and rainfall helps researchers find material from environments resembling the conditions they want a crop to withstand.
- Conserve the material. Seeds or other propagules can be stored in genebanks for long-term use. Conservation in the natural habitat is also important because wild populations continue to evolve there and may contain diversity that has not been collected. A sample that cannot be maintained or accessed cannot support a future breeding program.
- Evaluate the samples. Researchers grow accessions in greenhouse, laboratory or field trials and expose them to relevant conditions. They measure the trait directly—for example, disease severity, survival, biomass, yield under limited water or growth in saline soil. Passport and environmental data identify candidates; they do not prove performance.
- Make crosses with a crop variety. A selected wild plant is crossed with a domesticated variety. The first offspring combine crop and wild genomes and may still look or perform unlike a farmer’s crop.
- Recover crop performance by selection. Breeders make further crosses and select descendants that retain the desired trait while regaining useful crop characteristics such as yield, maturity, quality and manageable plant form. Unwanted wild characteristics can be reduced through repeated crossing and selection.
- Distribute pre-bred lines. Once a line combines a verified trait with a more usable crop background, it can enter subsequent breeding programs. These lines are called pre-bred because they prepare difficult-to-use wild diversity for crop improvement; they are not automatically commercial varieties.
Why passport and environmental data matter
Collecting every available wild plant is neither practical nor necessary. Location information lets breeders prioritize material intelligently. If a program needs drought tolerance, accessions from regions with chronic water limitation may be more informative than samples from consistently wet habitats. For cold tolerance, altitude and local temperature records can point to populations that regularly experience low temperatures.
This approach is a search strategy, not a shortcut around testing. Two plants collected in the same region may differ genetically, and a plant adapted to surviving drought may produce little harvestable yield. Researchers therefore use environmental data to nominate candidates, then verify the trait in replicated evaluations.
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The Crop Trust reported that more than 4,200 of 4,587 project seed samples had passport data added to the Genesys information system by the end of 2021. That figure describes the data status of those project samples at that time; it is not a count of all CWR collections worldwide.
Which crop traits can wild relatives contribute?
Breeding targets generally fall into two broad groups. Biotic traits help a plant cope with living threats, while abiotic traits help it cope with physical or chemical conditions.
| Trait group | Examples | How scientists verify it | Main breeding challenge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Biotic resistance | Resistance to fungi, bacteria, viruses, insects or other pests | Challenge tests, disease nurseries or field trials that measure infection, damage and yield | Resistance must remain effective in a crop background and under the pathogen or pest populations that farmers face |
| Abiotic tolerance | Drought, heat, cold, flooding, salinity or poor-soil tolerance | Trials that impose or monitor the stress and measure survival, growth, yield and quality | A plant that survives stress may still have poor yield, maturity or product quality |
| Resource-use traits | More efficient use of water or nutrients, or growth in a marginal environment | Comparisons across controlled and representative field conditions | Performance can depend strongly on soil, weather and management, so results may not transfer directly between locations |
Wild material can also carry traits that breeders do not want, including weedy growth, delayed maturity, poor harvestability or undesirable quality. The purpose of pre-breeding is to separate the useful inheritance from those disadvantages as far as possible.
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Documented outcomes from crop-wild-relative breeding
The Crop Trust’s Crop Wild Relatives Project, covering 2011–2021, illustrates the scale of coordinated collection and pre-breeding. The project collected nearly 5,000 seed samples from more than 320 CWR species related to 28 globally important crops. Its pre-breeding work covered 19 crops and produced more than 14,000 pre-bred lines.
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| Crop or crop group | Reported outcome | What the report supports |
|---|---|---|
| Rice | Salt-tolerant rice in Vietnam | A project example of transferring salt-related adaptation into rice material; it does not mean every rice line from the project is salt tolerant or widely commercialized |
| Alfalfa | Cold-tolerant alfalfa in Chile, China and Kazakhstan | Project-reported lines developed from wild diversity collected or evaluated for difficult environments |
| Potato | Disease-resistant potato in Peru | A project example of using wild relatives to improve resistance; the report does not establish universal adoption of all resulting lines |
| Durum wheat | Drought-resistant durum wheat in Lebanon | A reported outcome for a specific breeding effort, not a guarantee that all durum wheat now has drought resistance |
| Sunflower | Resistance to rust, sclerotinia, downy mildew and other pests and diseases | USDA Agricultural Research Service reports that cultivated sunflowers have benefited from North American wild relatives |
In describing alfalfa work, Alan Humphries of the South Australian Research and Development Institute said researchers found wild species adapted to “really unfavorable environments” and used them to develop alfalfas that survive extremes of drought and cold while still growing well. The point is not that a wild plant can be planted directly as a crop, but that its adaptation can become useful after evaluation and breeding.
Benjamin Kilian, coordinator of the Crop Wild Relatives Project, reported that rice, alfalfa, durum wheat and potato had exceeded expectations, with new varieties incorporating traits from wild relatives already in farmers’ fields or expected to be soon. Those statements refer to the project’s reported examples and should not be generalized to every crop-wild-relative cross.
Why pre-breeding is the essential bridge
Conventional crop breeding usually starts with material that already performs reasonably well in agriculture. Wild relatives often sit much farther from that starting point. They may flower at different times, have incompatible chromosome relationships, mature too late, produce small or poor-quality harvests, or express useful and harmful traits together.
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Pre-breeding absorbs that difficulty before material reaches a broad crop-improvement program. Specialists make the initial crosses, identify descendants carrying the target trait, and recover enough crop performance that other breeders can use the lines without repeating the entire wild-to-crop conversion. This division of labor is why a pre-bred line can be valuable even when it is not itself a farmer-ready variety.
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Validation must cover more than a single successful plant. Breeders need evidence that the trait is inherited, expressed consistently and compatible with agronomic performance. A drought-tolerant plant that yields poorly in normal seasons may not be useful; a disease-resistant plant whose resistance fails against local pathogen strains may need additional sources of resistance.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Conservation determines what breeding can do later
Wild populations are threatened by habitat loss, land-use change and climate-related pressures. If a population disappears before it is collected or conserved, its unique genetic combinations may be unavailable to breeders and future researchers.
Ex situ conservation stores seeds or other material in genebanks. In situ conservation protects populations in their natural habitats, where they continue to experience selection and evolution. These approaches complement each other: genebanks provide a controlled, documented source for distribution and testing, while natural populations preserve ongoing evolutionary change and local ecological context.
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1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsA 2016 global assessment modeled 1,076 taxa related to 81 crops. It found that 313 taxa—29.1 percent—had no germplasm accessions in genebanks, while another 257 taxa—23.9 percent—were represented by fewer than ten accessions. Those are findings from that assessment, not a current worldwide census. They show why collecting and conserving additional diversity remains important even when some wild relatives are already available.
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Access is as important as storage. The Crop Trust reported that pre-bred lines from its 2011–2021 project were deposited in genebanks and made available through the Plant Treaty’s Multilateral System. A conserved sample that researchers cannot locate, request or legally use contributes little to practical crop improvement.
How wild relatives compare with other breeding sources
| Source of diversity | Typical strength | Evidence needed | Transfer difficulty | Access consideration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crop wild relative | Adaptations or resistance not present in cultivated material | Direct trait evaluations plus testing in a crop background | Often high because undesirable wild traits may accompany the target | Depends on collection, genebank conservation and applicable access rules |
| Landrace | Farmer-selected variation adapted to local production conditions | Multi-environment trials and quality or yield measurements | Usually intermediate, depending on the crop and trait | May be conserved on farms, in genebanks or both |
| Existing elite breeding material | Known agronomic performance and compatibility with modern varieties | Confirmation of the new trait and performance advantage | Generally lower because the material already fits crop production | Usually available within breeding programs, subject to ownership or access terms |
No source is universally best. Elite material is easier to use but may lack a needed adaptation. A wild relative may offer a rare resistance gene but require years of crossing and selection. Landraces can provide useful combinations of traits while retaining more crop adaptation than a distant wild species. Breeders choose among them according to the target trait, validation results, transfer difficulty and whether the material is conserved and accessible.
What wild plant breeding cannot guarantee
- Finding a candidate does not prove a trait. Environmental origin suggests where to look; replicated trials establish whether the plant actually performs under the target stress.
- Survival is not the same as productivity. A wild plant may endure drought, salt or cold yet produce little usable crop product. Selection must retain yield, quality and practical maturity.
- Resistance can be specific. Disease resistance may work against some pathogen populations but not others, so testing conditions and geography matter.
- One project’s examples are not universal outcomes. Salt-tolerant rice, cold-tolerant alfalfa, disease-resistant potato and drought-resistant durum wheat are reported project results, not evidence that every crop can be improved quickly or that all resulting lines are commercial varieties.
- Genetic diversity alone does not solve food insecurity or climate change. Farmers also need suitable soils, water, management, seed systems, markets and varieties that perform reliably in their regions.
- Conservation is an ongoing obligation. A single accession may not capture the diversity of an entire wild species, and stored material must remain viable, documented and available for future use.
How to judge a claim about a “wild” crop improvement
When reading that a crop was improved with a wild relative, check five questions:
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- What trait was measured, and under what environmental or disease conditions?
- Was the result observed in a replicated trial or inferred only from the collection site?
- Did breeders produce a pre-bred line, an advanced breeding parent or a released variety?
- Where is the material conserved, and can qualified breeders access it?
Those questions separate a documented breeding result from a broad promise that wild plants will automatically make crops tougher. The practical achievement is the complete chain: diverse wild populations, reliable records, verified traits, careful crossing, selection for crop performance, and continued access to the resulting material.
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