Aliyu Siise, Massawe Festo, Mayes Sean
a School of Biosciences , The University of Nottingham , Sutton Bonington Campus, Loughborough , Leicestershire , UK.
Biotechnol Genet Eng Rev. 2014 Oct;30(1-2):127-41. doi: 10.1080/02648725.2014.992625. Epub 2015 Jan 21.
The potential for underutilized crops (also known as minor, neglected or orphan crops) to improve food and nutrition security has been gaining prominence within the research community in recent years. This is due to their significance for diversified agricultural systems which is a necessary component of future agriculture to address food and nutritional security concerns posed by changing climate and a growing world population. Developing workable value chain systems for underutilized crop species, coupled with comparative trait studies with major crops, potentially allows us to identify suitable agricultural modalities for such species. Bambara groundnut (Vigna subterranea L. Verdc.), an underutilized leguminous species, is of interest for its reported high levels of drought tolerance in particular, which contributes to environmental resilience in semi-arid environments. Here, we present a synopsis of suitable strategies for the genetic improvement of Bambara groundnut as a guide to other underutilized crop species. Underutilized crops have often been adapted over thousands of years in particular regions by farmers and largely still exist as landraces with little or no genetic knowledge of key phenotypic traits. Breeding in these species is fundamentally different to breeding in major crops, where significant pedigree structures and history allow highly directed improvement. In this regard, deploying new integrated germplasm development approaches for variety development and genetic analysis, such as multi-parent advance generation inter-crosses (MAGIC), within breeding programmes of underutilized species will be important to be able to fully utilize such crops.
近年来，未充分利用的作物（也称为小众、被忽视或孤生作物）在改善粮食和营养安全方面的潜力在研究界日益凸显。这是因为它们对多样化农业系统具有重要意义，而多样化农业系统是未来农业的必要组成部分，以应对气候变化和世界人口增长所带来的粮食和营养安全问题。为未充分利用的作物品种开发可行的价值链系统，再加上与主要作物的性状比较研究，有可能使我们确定适合此类作物的农业模式。 Bambara花生（Vigna subterranea L. Verdc.）是一种未充分利用的豆科物种，尤其因其据报道具有较高的耐旱性而受到关注，这有助于半干旱环境中的环境恢复力。在此，我们概述了适合Bambara花生遗传改良的策略，作为其他未充分利用作物品种的指南。未充分利用的作物通常在特定地区被农民种植了数千年，并且很大程度上仍然以地方品种的形式存在，对关键表型性状的遗传知识了解很少或根本不了解。这些物种的育种与主要作物的育种有根本不同，主要作物有重要的谱系结构和历史，允许进行高度定向的改良。在这方面，在未充分利用物种的育种计划中部署新的综合种质开发方法用于品种开发和遗传分析，例如多亲本高级世代杂交（MAGIC），对于能够充分利用此类作物将非常重要。
