The new varieties of crops produced by plant breeders in the 20th century had many advantages over landraces – higher yields, more grain heads per plant, improved quality traits and resistance to several diseases. Dramatic changes were made to make them more suitable for mechanised agriculture. In barley, the long straw of landraces was replaced by much shorter, stiffer straw [see photo], allowing more fertiliser to be applied without the risk of crops lodging (falling over). But they don’t evolve. Modern varieties usually only have a short commercial life; they are soon replaced by ‘better’ varieties.
As high yield became an increasingly dominant objective of crop production in the more economically advanced countries, farmers rapidly adopted modern varieties in preference to landraces. In order to obtain the high yields from the new varieties, however, farmers also had to adopt a wide range of inputs (e.g. fertilisers and crop protection chemicals) to provide them with optimum growing conditions.
Over the 20th century it is thought that the area of bere barley, a landrace grown for 1000 years in Scotland, decreased from about 4,000 to 20 hectares.
The picture in modern times
Today, in Europe, landraces are seldom grown on a large scale and are mostly only grown in less developed, less intensively farmed, more remote, more peripheral areas. They tend to be more resilient to stress (e.g. drought or poor soils) than modern varieties and even out‐perform them in places where growing conditions are not optimal.
Bere barley is only grown now in the Northern Isles (Orkney and Shetland) and the Western Isles where they grow bere (Hordeum vulgare) for animal feed as part of a crop mixture with landraces of rye (Secale cereale) and black oats (Avena strigosa). In these regions, growing seasons are short, late and cool. The coastal locations have sandy soils which are nutrient-deficient. Bere grows successfully with low-input farming on these soils and it can produce a crop of grain in a short period of time. The unfashionable long straw always was and still is valued for animal bedding.
Landraces also survive where they can be grown for higher value specialist markets for which they may still have a quality advantage over modern varieties – for instance, their taste. Products made from them might hold a cultural / heritage value that can aid their conservation.
This is certainly the case in Orkney with bere barley flatbreads, called bannocks, and the Barony Mill. Happily, Bruichladdich’s bere barley whisky has been part of the revival since 2005 [Read more here >]. There are other craft enterprises that value bere barley’s distinctive flavour and high provenance up on Orkney too. [more here from a trip to Orkney >]
Conservation of landraces is also important because they are a valuable genetic resource for producing modern varieties. In the face of accelerating climate change, for example, they give us more options.
While it is generally agreed that the best method of conserving landraces is to continue growing them in their region of origin, it is also vital to conserve them in genebank collections in case they are lost or abandoned. This is now being done in several parts of the world, so we should be able to draw on landrace crops, and recognise their value, long into the future.