This episode I speak with Dr. Patrick Byrne, Professor Emeritus of Plant Breeding and Genetics at Colorado State University. Our topic: crop wild relatives, the forebears to all of the agricultural crops we love and depend on. Patrick helps us understand the relationship between, say, Teosinte and modern corn, and why the conservation of these wild relatives is crucial to the improvement of our crop cultivars.

Links:

Grin-U.org: a great repository for online learning materials on plant genetic resources conservation and use.

Free Ebook: Crop Wild Relatives & Their Use in Plant Breeding

Or some related videos instead

Our guest on the Farmer Questionnaire in this episode was Tracy Robertson of Stony Mountain Farm in BC's Cariboo Region.