Opinion Paper: Bandwagons I, too, have known (reflections of a plant breeder) ($)

In this entertaining Opinion article written for the 150^th anniversary of Mendel’s seminal work, Bernardo reviews “bandwagons” that have come and gone in plant breeding. Early bandwagons such as induced polyploidy are discussed, as well as more recent trends such as trangenics, molecular markers and QTL mapping, association mapping, and genomewide selection. He also summarizes the life cycle of a bandwagon, and concludes, “Bandwagons come in waves. A plant breeder, just like a surfer, needs to carefully choose which waves to be on.”  Theor. Appl. Genet. 10.1007/s00122-016-2772-5