Segetal and ruderal relatives of cultivated plants and the problems of their conservation and use: a Russian perspective

The paper presents a survey of the situation existing now in nature with wild relatives of crop species from the group of segetal and ruderal plants, found within the territories of Russia and of other CIS countries. The majority of non-specialized annual and perennial weeds have been shown still to occur in the territory of the former USSR. For the past 50 years they have not seriously vanished from agriculture. Some of them even have a tendency to expand their areas and to become more abundant. Hence they need not be conserved in gene banks. It is only for a relatively small group of species of specialized contaminants that care should be taken to preserve them and to store their seeds in gene banks.