A new joint report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the African Union Commission (AUC) highlights the enormous gap between current public and private financing of agriculture and the level of financing needed to transform Africa’s agrifood systems. It also affirms the continuing rise in hunger and food insecurity across Africa, underscoring the urgency for substantial and sustained financing to transform agrifood systems.

In this study, we investigated the genetic control of dwarfism in naturally occurring dwarf mutant lines of grapevines. Through trait–segregation and marker–trait association analyses, we identified a major locus on Chromosome 14 tightly associated with the dwarf trait. Subsequently, we conducted a bulked RNA-seq analysis, fine mapped the dwarf trait and identified VviBR6OX1, a cytochrome P450 enzyme involved in brassinosteroid synthesis, as a candidate gene for the observed dwarfism.

Researchers at the University of Tsukuba have identified a gene, SlIAA9, that plays a critical role in allowing tomato seeds to germinate under extreme heat. While high temperatures typically trigger dormancy or cause physical abnormalities in standard tomato seedlings, plants lacking this gene showed a remarkable ability to maintain high germination rates and healthy growth.