In the temperate world the present is dominated by the words ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ and we wonder what the effects will be upon our crops, our food supplies. . . and thus upon our lives. The publication of this volume of brief reports is timely in that we are reminded forcibly of three major environmental stresses affecting crops and lives in the tropics – drought, cold and salinity.

The proceedings are nicely introduced by an excellent general discussion by Brown and Rieseberg of how heterozygosity, polymorphisms, adaptive divergence, and so on, define the genetic make-up of plant populations – mainly landraces – in stress-prone environments. They conclude that to counter the stresses for the good of the farmer reduction of genetic vulnerability should be the aim, and pose a series of questions to guide research.

The titles of the contributions to the proceedings in themselves demonstrate the breadth of the problem: from faba bean in Morocco, via okra in Burkina Faso, date palm in the Maghreb, quinoa in Bolivia and several on maize in various countries. Large quantities of data have been accumulated and the scientists involved are intent upon implementing their recommendations for the benefit of farmers in difficult terrain – whether their rice crops be fighting excess salinity in Vietnam or cold in Nepal.

The wrap-up sessions extended beyond the three major factors to include low soil fertility, soil erosion, soil acidity and climatic disaster, and the working groups concluded by compiling a concise list of questions for both researcher and farmer alike that could help us all understand better how stresses should be characterized and managed, and the role of genetic variation in tolerating such stresses.

Perhaps, though, the main contribution that this compendium makes to scientists working in relatively gentle, temperate climes is to remind them of how tough work is at the coal face of crop science!