by Laurie Bedord
The next frontier in plant breeding isn’t just about science; it’s about imagination.
After decades of breakthroughs in hybrids and biotech traits, researchers are once again pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. But as new technologies emerge, from gene editing to data-driven design, progress will depend not only on innovation, but also on public acceptance and the ability to put those tools to work in the field.
As a young scientist, Geoff Graham once had the chance to meet Norman Borlaug, whose agronomic work spurred extensive production increases called the Green Revolution. While walking him to his next stop, Borlaug told Graham that he had a responsibility to advocate for biotechnology because there would be plenty of people who didn’t want it to succeed.
“At the time I thought, how could anyone not see its value?” Graham recalled. “But he was right. We have been limited in how we can use the technology.”
Now leading Corteva Agriscience global breeding programs, Graham believes the future of plant breeding will require every tool available and a shared understanding of why each matters.
“Each of us has a role to play so we can help farmers face what’s coming,” he said. “A changing planet necessitates new solutions, and we must advocate for them.”
With that mindset, researchers are exploring the next wave of advances that will shape how crops are bred, protected and managed.
Gene editing
In the last 20 years, there has been a fundamental shift in application of new methods in plant breeding. Technologies like doubled haploids, predictive analytics and precision phenotyping have allowed products to be made faster and with more precision than ever before.
In modern breeding, these technologies impact 100% of Corteva’s breeding projects. But a new transformative tool is already on the rise: gene editing.
Graham said combining gene editing with these now-baseline tools will offer a new frontier in product development.
One of the most promising uses is in disease resistance.
“In the past, we’ve added herbicide and insect resistance into the bag through biotechnology,” Graham said. “We’re entering a phase where we’re adding disease resistance with gene editing. That’s a scale and a speed we’ve never reached before, and it changes how we continue to deliver value to the grower.”
In the next couple of years, he expects gene-editing’s benefits, especially for disease protection, to take center stage. By 2030, disease-resistant corn hybrids could become standard on farms.
“Fungicides will still play a role, but more of that protection will be built right into the seed itself, offering a more sustainable and efficient approach,” Graham said.
Dave Bubeck, research director and global breeding alliances lead at Corteva, sees genome editing as the key to unlocking tougher agronomic traits like drought resistance. In the past, progress often came one gene at a time. Genome editing lets breeders work with dozens of genes at once, turning a crop that struggles under drought into one that can still perform.
That, Bubeck said, is the real promise of genome editing: amplifying genes of small effects into genes of larger and more meaningful improvements for farmers.
Cyber agriculture
If gene editing represents the biological side of the next revolution, cyber agriculture is the digital one. It brings together agriculture, data science, robotics and artificial intelligence to accelerate the pace of plant and crop improvement.
At Iowa State University, researchers Asheesh Singh and Soumik Sarkar, who also are Soynomics members, are leading the charge on this concept. Their goal: turn plant breeding and crop production from a slow, hands-on process into one that’s fast, data-driven and highly automated.
The system is made up of three components: sensing, modeling and reasoning, and actuation.
Drones, cameras and sensors collect data in the field. Modeling and reasoning rely on AI-based software and decision-support tools to interpret and forecast that data. Breeders and farmers can then use smart machines to act on those insights. Behind it all, cyber infrastructure keeps data private and everything connected and working in sync.
From digital cameras that spot disease or detect drought stress before the human eye can to ground robots that count pods and seeds with high accuracy and 3D-imaging systems that create fully immersive virtual-reality environments, researchers are finding new ways to connect the dots and make smarter breeding decisions both in the field and on the computer.
“We’re using data analytics and artificial intelligence for estimation, prediction and decision-making,” explained Singh, a professor of agronomy, soybean and millets breeder at ISU. “Using a cyber-agricultural system, we are developing new varieties more efficiently that are better than the ones that came before them.”
Facing challenges
Even as technology advances, the way a plant looks in the field still matters. The height of the stalk, the spread of the leaves and the way it stands against the wind all tell a story about performance.
That’s why short-stature corn has faced an uphill climb, said Kendall Lamkey, ISU associate dean of facilities and operations.
“It doesn’t look like the corn most farmers grew up with,” he said. “Some ears are too close to the ground. Even in a perfectly flat field, the snouts of the corn head have to run on the ground, and farmers don’t like that.”
In rolling fields, that issue multiplies.
“If you’ve got a 12-row corn head, it might be 3 feet off the ground in one spot and almost scraping soil in another,” he said.
The current short corn uses a naturally occurring gene that reacts to the environment, which means ear height can vary. Within a few years, Lamkey said, a more stable transgenic version should keep ears consistently about 2 feet off the ground, a big improvement for harvestability.
While new tools reshape crop genetics, the battle against weeds never lets up.
“Weeds are still the top agronomic challenge, especially in soybeans,” Lamkey said. “In Iowa, we’ve got waterhemp populations resistant to everything. We’re going to have to get creative.”
That creativity is showing up in stacked herbicide-tolerant traits, the next wave of weed management.
And increasingly, that same breeding ingenuity is being applied beyond weeds to help crops withstand the unpredictability of weather itself.
Staying ahead of Mother Nature
As breeders work to stack more traits into seed to combat a variety of pests and other challenges, Singh said that same mindset should extend to managing weather stress. In this era of unpredictable conditions, a single field might experience both flooding and drought in the same season.
The goal, he explained, is to build plants that are resilient enough to handle whatever Mother Nature throws at them while still delivering strong yields and profitability.
Bubeck agrees that weather extremes are intensifying, but he said plant breeding is one field already structured to adapt.
At Corteva, each new hybrid undergoes three to five years of testing across more than 100 locations before it reaches a farmer’s field. That broad testing helps breeders understand how genetics and traits perform under an ever-wider range of environmental pressures.
Technology is pushing that adaptability further. Using whole genome prediction, Bubeck said Corteva breeders can analyze multiyear datasets to forecast which hybrids are most likely to perform well under future conditions.
Instead of advancing products through the pipeline after one or two years of results, they now combine data from the past five years to make smarter, longer-term decisions.
To further prepare for the widest possible range of conditions, breeders test hybrids across environments — some natural and others tightly controlled — to understand how different genetics respond.
In drought trials, for instance, they can manipulate when and how much water a plant receives to determine which hybrids perform strongest under early- or late-season stress.
Graham likens this process to studying the DNA of an environment. By planting hundreds of corn varieties in one location and tracking performance, breeders can map how genetics express themselves under specific conditions.
Over time, that data helps identify where certain hybrids thrive best and how to position them for success in seasons to come.
Still, there’s only so much a plant can endure. Breeding programs are designed to handle what’s likely to happen — about 85% of normal conditions. When weather pushes outside that range, consistency becomes tougher to maintain.
And sometimes, Mother Nature wins.
“When we see truly unusual events, that’s when it gets tricky,” Graham said. “I can’t make a corn plant stand up to a derecho. If oak trees can’t, it’s not realistic to expect corn to.”
A longer view
While these advances promise near-term change, Graham is most excited about what lies ahead: the innovations that could reshape entire production systems rather than individual crops.
“Our ability to fine-tune plants and production systems is reaching new heights,” he said. “We’ll see more integration between crops, systems and long-term profitability, not just year-to-year gains. We have to think beyond a single corn or soybean crop and view it as part of a bigger picture.”
Hybrid wheat is one example. Expected to reach the market around 2027, it could redefine where and how small grain is grown, much like hybrid corn did in the 1930s.
“Could it pave the way for multi-crop, two-season systems across the Midwest?” Graham said. “What would that mean for how we breed and manage corn, soybeans and wheat? Our limits are more about imagining the possibilities than about technical constraints.”
For Graham, that mindset of expanding what’s possible is the next great challenge. The convergence of gene editing, automation and digital intelligence is accelerating discovery faster than ever.
“The potential lies within our imagination,” he said. “As these technologies come together, the question is how do we create more?”
Bedord writes from Ankeny in central Iowa.