The field trials of high-yielding and pest-resistant sunflower varieties in Tanzania showed promising results. A long term facility has been established by the Agricultural Markets Development Trust to address the challenges in sunflower farming and marketing. Successful development of better sunflower varieties would lead to improved supply of sunflower oil, which is cholesterol-free.

Walter Cronkite, the late great reporter for CBS News in the U.S., once said, “A career can be called a success if one can look back and say, ‘I made a difference.’” By this measure, four new International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) alumni, who retired in 2017, have been extremely successful. It is poignant that Roland Buresh, J.K. Ladha, Noel Magor, and Nollie Vera Cruz all boxed their papers and passed the baton on to their successors last year.

Parthenocarpy is a desired trait in tomato since it can overcome problems with fruit setting under unfavorable conditions. A parthenocarpic tomato cultivar, ‘MPK-1', with a parthenocarpic gene, Pat-k, exhibits stable parthenocarpy, thus, producing few seeds and are propagated inefficiently via cuttings. The team of Rihito Takisawa from Kyoto University in Japan isolated the Pat-k gene to study its relationship with parthenocarpy and low seed set.

Christopher Saski, a Clemson University associate professor of plant and environmental sciences, together with his transdisciplinary team of investigators, is sending his research on the cotton genome into outer space after being selected as a winner in the Cotton Sustainability Challenge.

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside have taken an important step in understanding the molecular mechanism of huanglongbing (HLB), the destructive disease that is a serious threat to the citrus industry worldwide. HLB, also known as citrus greening disease, is associated with the bacteria Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus (CLas), which is transmitted by the Asian citrus psyllid (ACP). Once infected, trees typically die within three to five years.

Representatives from Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam, together with IRRI scientists and a project partner from the Philippines, participated in an Impact Pathways Workshop to share experiences and describe country-specific outscaling strategies.In addition to commonly employed extension strategies, partners have actively used different forms of social media to reach out to farmers and other stakeholders

The CRISPR-Cas9 system is an effective editing tool for plant and animal genomes. However, there are only a few reports on the application of CRISPR-Cas9 to horticultural plants. The team of Junhui Zhou from the University of Maryland in the USA aimed to evaluate the application of CRISPR-Cas9 in wild strawberry (Fragaria vesca) by targeting the auxin biosynthesis gene TAA1 and Auxin Response Factor 8 (ARF8).

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) Panel on Genetically Modified Organisms has published the Scientific Opinion on the safety of insect resistant and herbicide tolerant genetically modified (GM) cotton GHB614 × LLCotton25 × MON15985 (Unique Identifier BCS‐GHØØ2‐5 × ACS‐GHØØ1‐3 × MON‐15985‐7). The scientific opinion is published based on the application EFSA‐GMO‐NL‐2011‐94 under Regulation (EC) No. 1829/2003 from Bayer CropScience AG.

Commonwealth countries must embrace innovations to address food, fuel, and health needs of her people. This was a clarion call by scientists and government representatives attending the Commonwealth Innovation Forum (TCIF), held in Queensland, Australia from April 5-6, 2018. The forum unanimously acknowledged innovation's role in delivering diversified and stronger global economic productivity. Echoing the message, Prime Minister of Malta, Dr. Joseph Muscat stressed that ideas and collaboration among different scientists and leaders are key to fostering innovations that can upscale the Commonwealth economy.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has partnered with the Earth BioGenome Project (EBP) in an effort that will yield millions of powerful new solutions to agriculture's challenges. EBP is an international cooperative initiative to sequence in the next 10 years the DNA of more than 1.5 million species—those more complex than bacteria—representing the world's biodiversity.