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A landrace is a domesticated, locally adapted, often traditional variety of a species of animal or plant that has developed over time, through adaptation to its natural and cultural environment of agriculture and pastoralism, and due to isolation from other populations of the species. Landraces are distinct from cultivars and from standard breeds. A significant proportion of farmers around the world grow landrace crops, and most plant landraces are associated with traditional agricultural systems. Landraces of many crops have probably been grown for millennia. Increasing reliance upon modern plant cultivars that are bred to be uniform has led to a reduction in biodiversity, because most of the genetic diversity of domesticated plant species lies in landraces and other traditionally used varieties. Some farmers using scientifically improved varieties also continue to raise landraces for agronomic reasons that include better adaptation to the local environment, lower fertilizer requirements, lower cost, and better disease resistance. Cultural and market preferences for landraces include culinary uses and product attributes such as texture, color, or ease of use. Plant landraces have been the subject of more academic research, and the majority of academic literature about landraces is focused on botany in agriculture, not animal husbandry. Animal landraces are distinct from ancestral wild species of modern animal stock, and are also distinct from separate species or subspecies derived from the same ancestor as modern domestic stock. Not all landraces derive from wild or ancient animal stock; in some cases, notably dogs and horses, domestic animals have escaped in sufficient numbers in an area to breed feral populations that form new landraces through evolutionary pressure. There are differences between authoritative sources on the specific criteria which describe landraces, although there is broad consensus about the existence and utility of the classification. Individual criteria may be weighted differently depending on a given source's focus (e.

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Limited role of soil texture in mediating natural vegetation response to rainfall anomalies

Sara Bonetti, Dani Or

Evidence suggests that the response of rainfed crops to dry or wet years is modulated by soil texture. This is a central tenet for certain agronomic operations in water-limited regions that rely on spatial distribution of soil texture for guiding precision ...

2022

Growing maize landraces in industrialized countries: from the search for seeds to the emergence of new practices and values

Marianna Fenzi

In industrialized countries, maize cultivation is mainly associated with the use of hybrid varieties and input-intensive monocultures. Despite the homogeneity of European maize landscapes, alternative models of maize production based on landraces exist. Un ...

TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD2021

Simple Summary:& nbsp;After domestication in specific regions, livestock followed human migrations and colonized the whole world. During this population expansion, human and natural selection, together with demographic events, molded the livestock genome l ...

2021

Maize

Maize (meɪz ; Zea mays subsp. mays, from maíz after mahis), also known as corn in North American- and Australian- English, is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The leafy stalk of the plant gives rise to inflorescences (or "tassels") which produce pollen and separate ovuliferous inflorescences called ears that when fertilized yield kernels or seeds, which are botanical fruits.

Plant breeding

Plant breeding is the science of changing the traits of plants in order to produce desired characteristics. It has been used to improve the quality of nutrition in products for humans and animals. The goals of plant breeding are to produce crop varieties that boast unique and superior traits for a variety of applications. The most frequently addressed agricultural traits are those related to biotic and abiotic stress tolerance, grain or biomass yield, end-use quality characteristics such as taste or the concentrations of specific biological molecules (proteins, sugars, lipids, vitamins, fibers) and ease of processing (harvesting, milling, baking, malting, blending, etc.

Breed

A breed is a specific group of domestic animals having homogeneous appearance (phenotype), homogeneous behavior, and/or other characteristics that distinguish it from other organisms of the same species. In literature, there exist several slightly deviating definitions. Breeds are formed through genetic isolation and either natural adaptation to the environment or selective breeding, or a combination of the two. Despite the centrality of the idea of "breeds" to animal husbandry and agriculture, no single, scientifically accepted definition of the term exists.