The seeds will be used for food security research at a seed bank in Lebanon, which is recreating collections destroyed in Syria. The Millennium Seed Bank at Kew is the world's largest wild plant seed bank. ''The real importance of these crop wild relatives is that in order to survive in the world they've had to adapt to hostile environmental changes,'' said Oriole Wagstaff of the Crop Wild Relatives project at Kew's botanic garden at Wakehurst in Sussex. ''These wild ones contain hidden treasures that might one day solve the threats crops are facing at the moment,'' Oriole Wagstaff added. The Crop Wild Relatives project is a global scheme that aims to collect, conserve and utilise the genetic diversity in the wild relatives of our domesticated crops to secure and improve food crops for the future.

Source: The Star November 22, 2017 01:30 UTC