Crop genomics is rapidly moving away from single reference genomes in favour of collections of genomes covering the genetic diversity of species. These ‘pangenomes’ offer the chance to compare and interrogate traits between individuals or varieties of the same species and its close relatives. In this week’s issue, Michael Schatz, Joyce Van Eck, Jesse Gillis, Zachary Lippman and colleagues take this concept a step further with a pangenome covering a whole genus — that of Solanum, which includes the global crops tomatoes and potatoes as well as indigenous crops such as the African eggplant (pictured on the cover) and naranjilla. The researchers found that only about 60% of genes were shared across all Solanum species, which, along with rapidly evolving gene duplications, highlights the challenges in translating findings for one crop to another. The team suggests that having a broader knowledge of the genomics of the genus — especially for the less-studied indigenous species — could make breeding strategies for staple and orphan crops alike more predictable and likely to succeed.