Genetic Improvement of Rural Landraces Through Mutation Research

Rural landraces are heterogeneous cultivars possessing valuable, unique characteristics, and are widely adapted to specific eco-geographical areas. Due to the absence of artificial selection, formal breeding applications, and minimum bottle neck event, rural landraces have classically preserved, and retained most of the beneficial genes. Since long ago rural landraces have been explored for the genes of interest for various breeding programs for improvement of yield, quality, as well as stress tolerance traits. Rural landraces are generally not cultivated for commercial purpose due to the lower economic returns, and fail to compete with other commercial, and modern cultivars. However, improvement of specific defects can fit the rural landraces for commercial purpose. Mutation approaches have been exploited intensively for improving yield contributing characters, quality, and resistance for biotic and abiotic stresses in crops. Hence, mutation could be a potential strategy for improving the specific traits of rural landraces. In addition to utilize the physical and chemical mutagens, advanced genome editing tools have been utilized for editing specific genes and/or base pair mutation. This chapter discusses the potential applications of mutation to improve the rural landraces for agronomic, quality, and resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses. In addition to highlight the successful stories, the chapter also covers the current progress of mutation research as well as their potential challenges, and limitations in landraces improvement.