Continuing a track record of joint research,
Riteca has made it possible to continue learning about the genetic resources of Extremadura,
and the Alentejo and Central regions of Portugal.
The project consists initially in safeguarding all the genetic resources we have collected.
To do this, we have bred them, we have characterized them,
and after manipulating the seeds we have added them to the germ plasm bank.
And in the second phase we are selecting the collected material to obtain varieties,
and we are also carrying out field trials with these varieties to see how they fit in, within the sowing of meadow plants.
The aim of this is to study the value of these species.
The evaluation of these resources is of three kinds,
the value of existence, as against the fact that if they didn't exist they couldn't be used.
Then there's the value of indirect use, which is to work with them, that is to have varieties,
which is what we are also doing in our case, and they'll be used in the very near future by farmers.
And then, the leisure value, which is that these genes are being stored so that in the future
they can be used for whatever may come, as we don't know what the future will hold.
The motive and the main value are in their applications to agriculture.
For farmers the importance they may have is to get varieties better adapted
and more profitable and of higher quality than today's ones.
This, in the end, gives seedlings which cost less and are more profitable.
Safeguarding genetic resources is fundamental,
it's an inheritance that we have to pass to future generations and we can't allow it to be lost,
and so, conservation of these resources is a very important task.
In other words, an effort in the present for the generations to come.