words: landrace, variety and cultivar

Can anyone help define landrace, variety and cultivar?  I think I know what they are, but when I try to put it into words, I find I can't explain it in a pithy way.  

Here's the definitions that I use.

Landrace:
A genetically-diverse, locally-adapted population.

Variety:
Having a distinct appearance from others of the species.

Cultivar:
A variety that is selectively inbred (maintained) to keep a consistent appearance.

As examples: My landrace maxima squash can have any colored skin. They can be any size between 5 and 15 pounds. Shape can be banana, round, or oblong. They have to taste great and mature quickly to satisfy the local eaters, and mature in the short growing season. Within my landrace, there are a number of varieties: Orange squash, Green squash, banana squash, round squash etc... Even round orange squash, round green squash, etc.

Landrace containing many varieties:


I grow one squash cultivar. Yellow crookneck. It is always crookneck shaped, and always yellow. I maintain it as a cultivar, and don't let it stray from that type.

Cultivar:

Just adding this to the discussion....  https://hortnews.extension.iastate.edu/2008/2-6/CultivarOrVariety.html

It looks from the definitions within that link that varieties generally will be inbred....."true" breeding....and often come from nature.

Cultivars are more the product of human endeavor and will include hybrids (but not always as in Joseph's crookneck), hybrids not being true breeding if they are interpollinated.  I guess that makes sense as I've often heard of open-pollinated varieties, but not open-pollinated cultivars, although I suppose such a thing could not be ruled out.  Will be interesting to additional discussion....hopefully I've interpreted the artigcle properly.

Edit:  I'm seeing a double-posting on this so hopefully one of them can be removed?  Also, with regard to when 'variety' is used colloquially, I've rarely heard larger-scale farmers refer, amongst each other, to their corn or sugarbeets as 'cultivars', although they may use the term 'hybrid'.  They most often just use the term 'variety' even if a bit generically.

Mr. Lofthouse is who I would defer to on this for sure. The only thing that I will add is that I think of cultivars as subsets of varieties. So to expand on Josephs example, there is a variety of summer squash we call yellow crookneck. They are soft skinned squash that mature early in the season and are yellow and crooknecked in shape. Within this there will be a number of cultivars, they will have varying size, color (canary yellow vs easter yellow for example) and they will vary in the exact growth habits/production of the plant.

Don't forget the word grex. Basically a mix a different varieties together that are all growing together but have not interbred. Grex could also be a synonym for a pre-landrae or a proto-landrace if you are developing a locally adapted landrace for your area. A specific variety could be selected out of a landrace.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5296298/

This is interesting. I've never seen the term other than here on Permies, so I checked Merriam-Webster. What a surprise! Their definition refers just to swine:
noun
Land·​ra·​ce | \ ˈlän(d)-ˌrä-sə  \
Collegiate Definition
: a swine of any of several breeds locally developed in northern Europe
First Known Use
1935, in the meaning defined above

I had assumed the word to be a combination of the English words "land" and "race", not the three syllable dictionary entry. How do Permies pronounce it?

"Landrace" as a proper noun refers to a breed of pig.

"landrace" as a generic term, applies to any plant or animal that is locally adapted, and genetically diverse.


I say "land" "race" with emphasis on land.

Planted parsley in my backyard five years ago and I do nothing and it grows like crazy and reseeds year after year. No watering no fertilizing etc. It even grows outside of the tilled garden area in natural ground. It was parsley from one variety seed packet. Is this a landrace? One variety sorted out the desirable traits of the offspring?

I always heard that referred to as an ecotype.  This might be a difference between American terms and those used in other countries.  For reference, here is a list of terms used by the USDA:

https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_PLANTMATERIALS/publications/nypmspo7532.pdf

Ecotype - A population of plants that has become genetically differentiated in response to the conditions of a
particular habitat. The plants may vary in growth habit, maturity, and other characteristics such as pubescence
and flower color. Sometimes referred to as a geographical race. A locally adapted population within a species
which has certain genetically determined characteristics; interbreeding between ecotypes in not restricted.

and also possibly relevant here:

Ecovar - The offspring of native species that have been developed from original plant material collected form a
specific ecological region. Selection is done with minor emphasis on improving agronomic characteristics, and
major emphasis on maintaining genetic diversity. See also “ecotype”.

Why doesn’t everything meld together over time and create a non diverse species?  

Seth, I don’t think so.  I think your parsley is simply perennial and loving where you put it.  

If plants could be pollinated by any plant in its range (typically millions of square miles), then that would possibly happen.  The thing is that plants can only be pollinated by other plants of that species within some short distance (100's of feet to maybe a couple of miles).  What happens is that because you are basically stuck with the plants in your neighborhood over dozens to 100's of generations they adapt to the local conditions, ans sometimes looks or gain new genes.  If you are geeky enough and have the interest, you can actually model this gene spread, bottle-necking, etc.

Thank you Ebo.  Haha!  I am geeky enough to map the genetics!  I did that for my dog once... anyway, I’ve been reading everything I can find about landracing?  Is that the correct term?  It’s terribly exciting. I was unable to find anything about genetics.  Why there are distinct individuals after harvesting plants.  For instance:  a bunch of beans planted together still comes out with a bunch of different colors.  I love diversity, especially in color and flavor.  I could not figure out how they stay separated.  Thanks again for answering my question.  It was driving me crazy.    

And...I would love to read more...

This is the first time I have heard the term landrace.  Like I said, I am used to hearing the term ecotype.  I would search for that term, or "geological race".  Since I do not do that type of population level modeling to have the references off the top, but I do know that it has been modeled.  If you cannot find anything in the next few weeks give me a private ping and I will see if I can find something for you.

I have heirloom lettuce and tomatoes that grow wild at my farm, It started with lettuce seed being blown about and now, I have lettuce all over!  love it!  the tomatoes, well, if you drop one and leave it, you will have a few hundred plants the next year!  Now, I transplant many of them and rejoice that I can!

The sheep I raise, Gulf Coast Sheep, are a landrace breed.  They are descendants of the sheep that the Spanish Explorers brought to this region in the 16th century and abandoned here. They became feral for several centuries and dropped their leg, belly, and head wool to adapt to the heat. Their feet are rock solid (no foot problems). They developed a high resistance to the parasites that are fatal to other breeds on the southeast.  They are sometimes misnamed Gulf Coast Native, but they are not native, but rather a landrace.

They are hardy, excellent foragers, excellent mothers, lamb on pasture, and have wonderful fiber. They are smaller than other breeds, and do not have as many multiple births, so they are not a “production” breed.

Their cousins, the Navajo Churro, were also brought by the Spanish Explorers.

Sami Winners wrote:a bunch of beans planted together still comes out with a bunch of different colors.  I love diversity, especially in color and flavor.  I could not figure out how they stay separated.

It’s not that the different colors “stay separated” so much as that all the genes remain in the population (especially if you intentionally choose to keep them). It’s not quite as simple as Mendel’s green and yellow peas, but it’s the same basic idea. The difference is that even though all the same genes are present, they might be expressed in novel combinations: seed color/pattern, seed size, pod color/pattern, some aspects of growing habit, etc. So, it’s not that the traits stay separated, but that they (ideally) mix judiciously. The coloration patterns are the result of the presence (or absence) of a relatively small number of genes, so there isn’t an unlimited number of colors that could be expressed.

Also to follow up on this, when planting native corn we get better yields when planing kernels of different colors together.  If you plant only one color it often does not fertilize well.

Shetland sheep are also a landrace breed (and an heirloom), though different breeders are currently focusing on different things to produce more homoogenous strains in their flocks. I intentionally breed for hardiness/mothering ability first, then fine fleeces in a wide variety of types (wooly, silky, single and double coated) and colors (black to a pale grey that's almost white, brown/moorit to near white, spots and other patterns), and try to preserve the Shetland type as seen in pictures and accounts from the 19th century, before Merinos were crossed onto them

So, for me a landrace is a breed that varies in one or more characteristics (in my case wool and color) and that is well adapted to marginal/low input conditions.

As a note, another word for selected variants which are geographically adapted is ecovar.  Sometime I need to research the use of the word landrace as I had never seen it before and I do not know how common it is in the literature.

Just to add in case one wishes to dig deeper.  Around the world many of the larger professional plant breeding outfits, mostly supported with public dollars,  will share "germplasm accessions"......seed lots that are distinguished by possession of one trait or another like drought tolerance, shattering resistance, resistance to certain diseases, etc.  Because such an accession might be developed over many years in Minnesota or Minsk before being documented and then requested by a plant breeder in Marrakesh, there is real concern over what that breeder in Marrakesh can hope to recover from material adapted to such a different and more northern climate.  The answer is found in late-stage crossing of the adapted population that possesses the desired traits with a 'wide population' that consists of same-species plants from many different climates.  What the recipient breeder then receives are the desired genes that are much more likely to be present within *some* seeds that do indeed grow in Marrakesh.  Upon planting out those seeds, that breeder now has the job of selecting material adapted for that climate and day/night cycle, the latter of which differs considerably from equatorial to more polar growing regions.  If the 'wide population' step had not been utilized, it's still possible to select from what is received, but advancement towards the adapted goal can be achieved more quickly.

Good point John.  There is an entire science and practice of developing cultivars -- the old school way (before GMO was a thing).

from Michael Couroyer      Landrace, of the swine family, usually white or light beige in colour ~generally regarded as a large, full grown, mature pig, or hog, known for gentle disposition, but larger litters of newborn piglets--a dozen piglets being quite common.