Wading Into the Gene Pool: Progress and Constraints Using Wild Species

The next aim of this special issue was to provide a general overview of the use of CWR. In “Past and Future Use of Wild Relatives in Crop Breeding,” Dempewolf et al. (2017) report broadly on the use of CWR, discussing the effective breeding methods and technologies that are allowing today’s breeders to capitalize on CWR, and discuss the challenges that continue to limit CWR use. The next set of papers focus on specific crops. This includes Seiler et al. (2017), “Utilization of Sunflower Crop Wild Relatives for Cultivated Sunflower Improvement” and Stalker (2017), “Utilizing Wild Species for Peanut Improvement,” who provide an overview of how CWR have been used in sunflower and peanut, both crops with a breeding history reliant on diverse gene pools. Continuing with peanut, Sharma et al. (2017), in “Harnessing Genetic Diversity of Wild Arachis Species for Genetic Enhancement of Cultivated Peanut,” describes the strategies used by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) to develop useful introgression lines based on crossing amphidiploids and autotetraploids of diploid wild species with peanut cultivars. Sharma (2017) continues describing ICRISAT strategies to introgress wild species into chickpea, pigeonpea, groundnut, and pearl millet, in “Pre-breeding Utilizing Wild Species for Genetic Enhancement of Grain Legumes.” These two papers illustrate the breeding synergy that’s possible through the close proximity of an extensive germplasm collection, curators, and plant breeders. The use of food legume CWR to improve abiotic stress tolerance is illustrated by Naim-Feil et al. (2017) in “Drought Response and Genetic Diversity in Pisum fulvum, a Wild Relative of Domesticated Pea” and Souter et al. (2017), in “Successful Wading Into the Gene Pool: Progress and Constraints Using Wild Species