Recently, the germplasm innovation team of CNRRI and Zhejiang University jointly published a review paper entitled Genomic clues for crop-weed interactions and evolution on Journal of Trends in Plant Science. The progress of molecular mechanism of crop-weed interactions and evolution was summarized, and the development of practical applications in agricultural weed control and crop breeding was furthered.

This paper reveals a complex evolutionary relationship between wild plants, crops and weeds. Crops are domesticated from wild plants. Many "grass" were turned into crops by our ancestors, even including some vicious weeds such as barnyard grass. Meanwhile, some crops involved into weeds that compete with crops. In recent years, genome-based research studies on agricultural weeds and crop–weed interactions reveal several major evolutionary innovations such as de-domestication, interactions mediated by allelochemical secondary metabolites, and parasitic genetic elements that play crucial roles in enhancing weed invasiveness in agricultural settings.

This work was supported by the Zhejiang Natural Science Foundation (LZ17C130001), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (16+X Project), the Natural Science Foundation of China (31461143014), the Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center for Modern Crop Production, the 111 Project (B17039), the Sino-Germany PPP Project, the Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Program Cooperation and Innovation Mission (CAAS-ZDXT201800), and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2018T110597). More details are available on the link below: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1360138518302140?via%3Dihub