Tropical crops enter the era of genome editing

Besides staple crops such as rice and maize,other tropical crops grown primarily in the tropics,including cassava,sweet potato,sugarcane,papaya,pineapple,and banana,provide important materials for our daily lives and for agro-industrial purposes.The modern breeding of these crops however is hampered by their biological nature and genetic complexity.All of these tropical crops can be,and in some cases must be,propagated vegetatively for traditional cultivation.