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In this article we will discuss about the role of biotic and abiotic components on environment.
Production agriculture operates in modified environments- even in subsistence agriculture natural environments are changed. This need not be detrimental to adjacent natural environments nor need it be debilitating to the production areas, however agriculture has unfortunately led to negative effects on the biotic and abiotic components of the environment.
With regard to the care of biotic resources, extensive genetic resource collections for the major cereals exist, and as far as can be judged, a large proportion of the primary and secondary gene pools of these crops is now in safe keeping and available for plant breeding programmes.
Although much work has still to be done to improve the intellectual and physical infrastructure needed for efficient accessing of the genes stored in these gene banks, plant breeders have, and continue to successfully use these resources to develop higher yielding varieties, especially of rice, wheat and maize.
Other grain crops such as sorghum and millets are covered by large collections but basic biological knowledge of their representativeness is incomplete. In general, with the exception of potato, the world’s major starchy crops have received far less attention than the cereal crops.
One of the difficulties for the starchy crops is that conservation is generally in field gene banks; as a consequence existing collections are primarily stocked by cultivated varieties. However, recent advances in in vitro conservation methods are making it possible to envisage a more extensive set of collections in the future.
Knowledge and care of the species interacting with the production species is another matter, particularly of soil microorganisms-knowledge in this field and consequent good practice are in their infancy. Past agricultural practices have often given no thought to the maintenance of all-important abiotic resources.
As a consequence, erosion, increasing acidification and salinization has become extreme in many parts of the world, taking what was previously some of the best land out of production.
Increasing awareness of the despoiling of both the soil and water resource is leading to the development and use of better management practices with a considerable research focus building on water availability and the appropriate use of fertilisers.
Genetics will certainly play a role in both countering and reversing these negative trends, yet the genetic improvement of crop species for greater efficiency in water use and in the acquisition of nutrients, is only just becoming a reality.