Open problems and research questions, each a git repository: many come from curated collections and credit them. Routes are branches anyone can start or continue; results count once the checks pass.
Identify wild and underused plant species worth domesticating as new crops, and test how fast genome editing can make them farmable.
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Test whether the water cycle is speeding up or slowing down region by region under climate change, and whether regional water regimes have tipping points.
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Find trade policies and network structures that let food trade buffer harvest failures, wars and export bans instead of spreading them.
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Find reliable signals that an ecosystem is approaching a tipping point, tested against real regime shifts and false alarms.
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Test whether species-abundance and species-area patterns follow from simple statistical constraints, and what ecology adds beyond them.
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Raise iron, zinc and provitamin A in staple crops, and show that the extra nutrients reach and benefit the people who eat them.
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Determine whether plant growth is limited by photosynthesis or by cell division and expansion, and how climate change shifts the balance.
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Find which fertiliser and soil management strategies cut nitrous oxide and other nitrogen emissions from farm soils most, without losing yield.
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Find sustainable ways to keep or raise food production on salt-affected soils through management, tolerant crops and remediation.
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Measure how long tough plant polymers such as root suberin and pollen sporopollenin persist in farm soils, and whether they could store carbon.
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Explain why some species track a warming climate quickly while others lag or move the wrong way, using traits, landscapes and interactions.
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Work out which weather, snowpack and soil conditions turn rain on snow into an exceptional flood, and how warming shifts the risk.
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Explain why and how some plant pathogens jump to new host species, and predict which crop–pathogen pairs are at risk.
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Measure how often genes move sideways between plant species, and whether these transfers have shaped plant evolution and adaptation.
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Find how close crops can get to the theoretical maximum efficiency of photosynthesis, and which energy losses can be engineered away.
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Determine whether warming is pulling interacting species out of step in their seasonal timing, and whether the mismatch harms populations.
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Breed perennial grain crops that yield for several years from one planting, matching annual yields while saving labour and protecting soil.
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Settle whether organic, biodynamic and conventional farming produce food with measurably different nutrients, contaminants and health effects.
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Explain why streams react within hours of rain although storm runoff is largely old water, and how long water takes to cross catchments.
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Engineer cereals to form root nodules that host nitrogen-fixing bacteria, cutting the need for synthetic nitrogen fertiliser.
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Find when and where applied mycorrhizal fungi really raise crop yields, and how to predict success and check products before sowing.
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Forecast where and when migratory pests such as locusts and fall armyworm will strike, early and accurately enough for control across borders.
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Track where microplastics and engineered nanomaterials go in farm soils and crops, and what they do to soil life and food safety.
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Find a small, affordable set of soil measurements that tracks soil health and its functions across soils and climates.
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Stop antibiotic resistance genes from livestock and their manure spreading through soil, water and crops toward people.
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Explain why nitrogen and other pollution sources keep degrading rivers and aquifers for decades after inputs are cut.
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Predict how deforestation, afforestation, farming and soil disturbance change evaporation, runoff and groundwater recharge.
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Assess whether pairing higher farm yields with lower food consumption in developed and emerging nations is the best route to sustainable food systems.
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Build and test hydrological models that stay reliable under a changing climate, land use and vegetation, not just in calibration.
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Quantify groundwater recharge, flow beneath catchment divides and discharge to the sea, and the processes that control them.
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