An international research team headed by Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) and the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne (MPIPZ) has developed a new and very precise method for identifying so-called genomic regulatory switches. These switches are responsible for the manifestation of plant traits. In Nature Genetics, they describe that, although these regulatory switches make up only a small fraction of the genome, they can have a significant influence on plant traits. The team demonstrated the method on regulatory switches relating to drought stress, identifying promising starting points for the breeding of new maize varieties adapted to e.g. climate change.