Published 10 AM EST, Fri May 15, 2026 At the heart of this innovation lies the use of a classic yet underutilized tool: gamma radiation-induced mutagenesis. Researchers exposed cuttings of the dominant peppermint clone, known as Black Mitcham, to controlled doses of gamma rays. This approach generated over 250 genetically distinct variants from a single clonal genotype. Commercial peppermint has remained genetically frozen for over two centuries. Unlike sexually reproducing plants, cultivars...

Published 10AM EST, Mon May 11, 2026. The Gap Between What We Grow and What We Understand Cannabis is one of the most commercially valuable crop plants on Earth, and until very recently, one of the least genetically characterized. While corn breeders have had access to dense genetic maps, validated QTLs for hundreds of traits, and genomic prediction models for decades, cannabis breeders have operated largely in the dark, making crosses based on phenotype, selecting based on visual assessment,...

Published 10 AM EST, Fri May 08, 2026 This discovery, recently published in the prestigious journal New Phytologist, unveils a specific segment on the X chromosome, termed Monoecy1, that acts as a sophisticated switch, orchestrating whether a cannabis plant develops as male, female, or both. This finding challenges long-standing assumptions about plant sex determination and opens new pathways for breeding and cultivation strategies in economically vital crops like cannabis and hops....