A new phase of treasure hunting in plant genebanks

The United Nations has estimated that the world population will surpass 8 billion on Nov. 15, 2022, and will continue to rise to 11.2 billion by 2100. Considering that agricultural resources are limited, it will be a huge challenge to produce sufficient food to feed such a rapidly rising global population. Furthermore, the ongoing climate changes are adding more pressures on worldwide crop productions. To cope with these problems, it is both imperative and urgent to develop the crop cultivars with higher yield potential, improved nutritional quality, and better resilience to environmental stresses.