Meiotic recombination underpins both applied plant breeding and gene mapping in fundamental research. However, in large-genome crops such as cereals (including barley; Hordeum vulgare), recombination generally occurs close to the telomeres with around 30% of the genes rarely, if ever, recombining. Understanding recombination in cereals is therefore crucial. So far, most meiotic research in plants has focused on understanding mechanistic aspects of the formation of crossovers (CO), but little has been centred on the effect...