Editorial

Realizing the potential of genomics for crop improvement Humans have a long history of using artificial selec-tion to modify the traits of agricultural species. The advent of genomics-based technologies have pro-vided the ability to address biological questions or alter phenotypes in ways not previously imagined. In the past decade, we have obtained reference gen-omes for a number of plant species including Arabidopsis, Chlamydomonas, rice, sorghum, poplar, Medicago, maize, soybean and Brachypodium. These reference genomes can now serve as the basis for comparitive studies within or among species and as a framework for a wide variety of functional geno-mics approaches. In addition, there are projects t