Our favourite fruit, the banana, is threatened by fungal, viral and bacterial diseases. This was discussed on the BBC TV programme ‘The One Show’ on 13 May, to include an interview with Pat Heslop-Harrison by renowned journalist, food critic and presenter Jay Rayner. The bananas we eat in the West are almost all of the single variety [...]

Our understanding of stomatal development in Arabidopsis thaliana is based on mutants with aberrant, often lethal phenotypes. Through a comprehensive analysis of stomatal abundance in wild A. thaliana accessions, Delgado et al. determine relationships amongst stomata-related traits and uncover hidden genetic variation in stomata developmental pathways. The study identifies natural accessions with extreme or uncommon phenotypes [...]