There is a wave of crop reference genomes being generated making it possible to improve navigation of important gene traits for crop improvement. A highly regarded approach toward assessing such traits is through the use of a pan-genome perspective for the genomes. Already there are over 100 reference genomes covering all the cereals mentioned here, and the genome sizes range from 6Gb to 15Gb in size each, depending on ploidy. Pan-genomes as a resource can begin the journey for evolutionary studies, tracking down individual traits, detecting genome variation by way of structure, tracking integrity of metabolic pathways, as well as leading to other studies in genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics. As many fully sequenced crop genomes quickly appear and multiply, the need for developing annotation pipelines for surveying pan-genomes and connecting them to traits and phenotypes in studied crop systems is imperative to secure our food future.
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