Presently vast genetic resources are available for improvement of the main crops used by
humans and animals. The ex-situ collections safeguard those resources collected in the
past, although not all collections are safe even today as far as personnel and facilities are
concerned. Use of in-situ collections is feasible but meeting with obstacles. Free accessibility
is not as straightforward as has been in the past. Apart from the cultivated accessions of
crops, wild relatives have always attracted breeders, for these contril?ute many useful traits.
Their genetic background, particularly of species in the secondary or tertiary genepool,
makes transfer difficult requiring new techniques to effectuate gene transfers. There have
been many attempts and evaluation and conservation of wild relatives is usually a task
taken up by most genebanks. Genetic modification, the modem way of transferring wanted
genes, has barely begun for the legume food crops. This paper presents some examples of
successful use made of wild relatives of chickpea, pigeonpea, fababean and lentil for breeding
)
during the past decennia
