b'Today, only about five of the original 300 taro varie-ties remain in regular use. Losing one, Winter argues, is not just genetic erosionits the disappearance of a library, a ritual, a story.Inspired by Sunday StewThe same spirit of kinship drives Samuul Ipinyomi, one of this years Borlaug Scholars, whose journey from Nigerian dinner tables to U.S. research labs shows how personal history can fuel scientific purpose.Now a Ph.D. candidate in plant breeding at the University of Florida, Ipinyomi remembers the aroma of Sunday stew as the spark that ignited his path. Made from tomatoes, this rich red dish was the crown jewelHale Tufan of Cornell Universitys of his familys weekand the source of his agriculturalEquitable Agricultural Research Lab inspiration. highlights the major gender gap in Growing up, one of my favorite foods was whiteglobal agriculture.rice and stew, he recalls. We didnt eat tomatoes like fruitwe turned them into a paste. Sunday stew? That was the king of meals.That deep connection led him to study rice, then eventually tomatoesdespite a lack of early mentor-ship in the field. Today, he works to extend resistance to Fusarium wilt, a disease that devastates tomato crops across the globe. Samuel Ipinyomi is a 2025 NAPB Borlaug Its an arms race, Ipinyomi explains. Were notScholar. He remembers the aroma of Sunday stew as the spark that ignited his trying to wipe out the diseasewere trying to makepath in plant breeding.resistance last longer. If I can give farmers 20, 30, 40 years without worrying about this disease, thats a win.Reimagining InnovationFor researchers Hannah Jeffery (a past Borlaug Scholar herself and a postdoc at Texas A&M University) and Gurminder Singh (Ph.D candidate at North Dakota State University whos a 2025 Borlaug Scholar)a mentor-mentee duo navigating the shifting terrain of plant geneticsthe seed is not just a symbol of life, but a data point, a puzzle, a promise.Jeffery is excited to be enhancing the nutritionalHannah Jeffery and Gurminder Singh are a mentor-value of locally adapted maize and sorghum lines. Priormentee duo navigating the shifting terrain of plant to working with Paape, she was a Ph.D student work- genetics.ing with Karen Cichy in the Department of Plant, Soil, and Microbial Sciences at Michigan State University. While there, she characterized the genetic control of cooking time in dry beans landraces and some elite germplasm. This enabled her to develop genetic mark- crops that endure. Crops that taste good. Crops that dont just growbut ers for cooking time that may improve the consumermatter, Jeffery says. One of Jefferys earliest questions wasnt about plant quality of locally adapted dry bean germplasm. height or yieldit was about dinner.Singh is looking at wheat resistance to tan spot dis- When youre breeding for dry beans, people care about how long they ease. He works in the Wheat Molecular Genetics Lab attake to cook, she says. Some varieties take foreverand we think the USDA-ARS. compounds that make them hard to cook might also help them survive In a conversation that starts with beans and wheatdrought or disease.and ends with a reimagined food system, the two plantThat simple observation led to a much deeper inquiry: could culinary scientists peel back the husk of what it takes to makeinconvenience be a sign of genetic armor?40/ SEEDWORLD.COMSEPTEMBER 2025'