December 2025 issue

Volume 70, Issue 12

• Crop production is a science that needs to constantly evolve in order for farmers to keep producing high yields in spite of emerging agricultural challenges. One strategy to enhance crop-breeding programs, genomic selection, allows breeders to predict the traits of a crop based on its DNA, before it’s ever grown. 
   
• While it took some time for genomic selection to be widely adopted in breeding programs, it now is an essential tool for many researchers, cutting down the time, labor, and resources needed to produce new crop lines.
   
• The future of genomic selection will likely see breeders incorporating new technologies, like recent breakthroughs in AI, into their programs. 

Cover photo shows Diana Escamilla, first author of a recent review in Crop Science, “Genomic Selection: Essence, Applications, and Prospects,” evaluating plants in a cotton field. Photo courtesy of Diana Escamilla.