Norway: The wild relatives of cultivated plants

Relationships between cultivated and wild plants play a key role in the work of securing Norwegian food production against diseases and climate change. The exhibition «The wild relatives of cultivated plants», which opened on 20 April, is part of a larger Nordic project. It aims to provide new knowledge about how our food plants and crops can cope with a changing climate. How can they be protected against new plant diseases, and how can agriculture cover the food needs of an ever-growing population, writes the Natural History Museum (NHM). Examples of cultivated plants with close relatives in the Nordic nature are apple, caraway, timothy and raspberry. - We know that climate change, new diseases and other environmental threats can affect everything we grow from vegetables, grains, fruits and berries, says botanist Kristina Bjureke at NHM. - But we do not know how, and we do not know what qualities we will need in the future. That is why it is important to be prepared, and that is ...