**8. Conclusions**

The domestication and crop improvement processes lead to converting teosinte into landraces and subsequently to the modern-day maize inbred. During domestication, based on genetic evidence, it is clear that selection was mainly focused on five genes. This leads to the change in the architecture and morphology of teosinte into maize. Maize has evolved distinct genetic solution towards domestication: domestication of maize has involved distinct genetic and regulatory networks have been used to acquire convergent phenotypes. During domestication and artificial selection, only a small part of the genome underwent selection, which ultimately led to the modern-day maize. So, wild relatives and landraces encompassing the unselected genes possess enormous potential as the donor for beneficial genes/ alleles. The derived inbred lines from such material could not be directly utilized in the breeding programme. They must be utilized as a donor for the specific traits, i.e., tolerance to biotic/abiotic stresses and nutritional quality traits. The utilization of wild relatives and landraces in the breeding programmes is not that easy; utilization of bridging species and embryo rescue provides the solution to this problem.

**41**

**Author details**

Lakshmi Kant

Almora, Uttarakhand, India

provided the original work is properly cited.

*Wild Progenitor and Landraces Led Genetic Gain in the Modern-Day Maize (*Zea mays *L.)*

The pre-breeding programme helps to utilize wild relatives and landraces to enrich the ongoing crop improvement programmes. The availability of the genome

sequence of 'B 73' and 'Palmoreo' landrace and strong pre-breeding programme can potentially enhance unexplored germplasm in the maize breeding programme.

Devender Sharma\*, Rajesh K. Khulbe, Ramesh S. Pal, Jeevan Bettanaika and

© 2021 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

ICAR—Vivekananda Parvatiya Krishi Anusandhan Sansthan,

\*Address all correspondence to: devender.kumar1@icar.gov.in

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.96865*

*Wild Progenitor and Landraces Led Genetic Gain in the Modern-Day Maize (*Zea mays *L.) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.96865*

The pre-breeding programme helps to utilize wild relatives and landraces to enrich the ongoing crop improvement programmes. The availability of the genome sequence of 'B 73' and 'Palmoreo' landrace and strong pre-breeding programme can potentially enhance unexplored germplasm in the maize breeding programme.
