The coming generations of crop plants can be grouped into four broad areas each presenting what, on the surface, may appear as unique challenges and opportunities.
The present and future focus is oncontinuing improvement of agronomic traits such as yield and abiotic stress resistance in addition to the biotic stress tolerance of the present generation; crop plants as biomass feed stocks for biofuels and ‘‘bio-synthetics’’; value-added output traits suchas improved nutrition and food functionality; and plants as production factories for therapeutics and industrial products.