Issue Information

Canada's Apple Biodiversity Collection (Nova Scotia, Canada) with a rainbow above. Apples are one of the most widely consumed fruits and provide significant nutritional value worldwide. Please see Watts et al's article “ Quantifying apple diversity: A phenomic characterization of Canada's Apple Biodiversity Collection” in this issue, which presents a comprehensive evaluation of apple diversity in Canada's Apple Biodiversity Collection, a collection of over 1000 apple varieties. They show that commercially successful apple varieties capture only a small fraction of apple diversity, and demonstrate that significant improvement is possible by tapping into existing genetic diversity. Image courtesy of Sean Myles.