Crop diversity
The human diet is very diverse, both with respect to the crop species that are consumed world-wide and with respect to the region-specific preferences for different crop varieties. To ensure sufficient food for everyone now and in the future, we need to cherish traditional farmer-developed crop varieties and their wild relatives, which are adapted to local climate and soil conditions. In addition, unravelling the genetic basis underlying crop diversity will allow us to steer crop traits and develop more robust, climate-adapted crops. Therefore, we study crop diversity at different levels, including genomic, transcriptomic and metabolomic data from modern varieties, traditional varieties and wild relatives.
