An international research consortium in Australia, which included national science agency CSIRO, The University of Queensland (UQ), and the Sugar Research Australia, has completed a reference genome for ‘R570’, a widely cultivated modern sugarcane hybrid, marking the first high quality sugarcane variety genome to be sequenced. The breakthrough is expected to address the challenge of stagnating sugar yields by tapping into the previously inaccessible genetic information in the sugarcane genome, whilst researchers expect it to improve their understanding of complex traits linked to yield and adaption to diverse environmental conditions as well as disease resistance. The research was funded by the Joint Genome Institute (USA) through the US Department of Energy community sequencing programme.