Crop shortages. A lack of breeders to apply the knowledge from plant science is jeopardizing public breeding programmes and the training of future plant scientists.

in the midst of an economic downturn, many college and university students in the uSa face an uncertain future. there is one crop of graduates, though, who need not worry about unemployment: plant breeders. “Our students start with six-digit salaries once they leave and they have three or four offers. We have people coming to molecular biology and they can’t find jobs. people coming to plant breeding, they have as many jobs as they want,” said Edward Buckler, a geneticist with the uS Department of agriculture’s agricultural research Service institute for genomic Diversity at cornell university (ithaca, Ny, uSa).