From Idea to Product: Modelling Plant Responses to Environmental Stresses to Guide Crop Breeding.

Crop models encapsulate knowledge from a century of crop science research. Mechanistic models structured around concepts of resource capture and use efficiencies provide an analytical and prediction framework capability to generate product concept ideas, inform phenotyping and germplasm characterization, and evaluate these concepts in virtual genetic x management x environments space. Using the development of AQUAmax® products as a framework I illustrate the development and application of modeling responses to environmental stress to support past genetic improvement and elaborate on future opportunities.