Anne Simon Moffat

Higher Yielding Perennials Point the Way to New Crops

Today, almost all of our major crops are herbaceous annuals—plants such as corn and soybeans that have to be replanted every year. These plants have a big advantage: They produce masses of seeds. Recent results from a few agricultural pioneers suggest, however, that it is possible to boost dramatically the seed yields of at least some perennials, including cousins to corn and wheat. These studies may eventually lead to new, more environmentally friendly crops.

Moving Forest Trees Into the Modern Genetics Era

Because of their large sizes, slow growth, and huge genomes, trees, especially forest species, have received little benefit from the gene transfer methods that have proved so useful for improving small crop plants. But new methods in gene mapping have opened the way to rapid identification of tree genes that confer desirable traits, a development that may aid both conventional tree breeding and the ultimate genetic engineering of a wide variety of improved tree strains.