Recent technological advancements have substantially expanded our ability to analyze and understand plant genomes and to reduce the gap existing between genotype and phenotype. The fast evolving field of genomics allows scientists to analyze thousand of genes in parallel, to understand the genetic architecture of plant genomes and also to isolate the genes responsible for mutations. Furthermore, whole genomes can now be sequenced. This review addresses these issues and also discusses ways to extract biological meaning from DNA data. Although genomic issuesare addressed from a plant perspective, this review provides insights into the genomic analyses of other organisms