Translational research in agriculture. Can we do it better?

‘Translational research’ became an increasingly common term when it was realised that much agriculturally inspired basic research failed to contribute to the improvement of crops. Most of the failure has come from laboratory-based attempts to ameliorate abiotic stresses. Dealing with biotic stress has been much more successful; the control of pests and weeds is often enabled by transforming crops with single genes, for such genes have little or no influence on a crop’s metabolism. By contrast, abiotic stress varies with the weather; i.e. crops respond systemically, over a range of levels of organisation (e.g. cells, tissues, organs), with many feedbacks and feedforwards. Drought is the most pervasive form of abiotic stress. There are 4600 papers that have searched, ineffectively, for ‘drought resistance’, a term that usually defies useful definition. By contrast, dealing with a measured, limited water supply (e.g. seasonal rainfall), rather than with ‘drought’, has effectively increased water-limited yield through agronomic innovation based on improving water-use efficiency. ‘Salt tolerance’ has similar difficulties; nevertheless, physiological knowledge has revealed effective single genes, in contrast to the failures of empirical gene prospecting. Another important goal has been to increase potential crop yield by exploring mechanistic opportunities to improve photosynthetic efficiency. These attempts have not, so far, succeeded, perhaps because they have rarely broached physiological responses beyond carbon balance, such as metabolic responses to environmental challenges that may affect meristematic development. A major reason for the predominant failure of translational research from laboratory to field is that the peer-review system is too narrow; i.e. reviewers have the same backgrounds as the authors. Effective translation will require the addition of reviewers who can assess the pathway from laboratory to field.