Turbocharging fundamental science translation through controlled environment agriculture

Abstract

Controlled environment agriculture (CEA) provides unprecedented opportunities to accelerate the translation of plant science breakthroughs into agricultural impact. By precisely controlling growth conditions, CEA enables the reliable and tightly regulated deployment of beneficial optimized traits by integrating emerging breeding, genomic, and synthetic biology tools. In this review we highlight both the progress and the remaining challenges enabled by CEA to reimagine crop design, including enhanced photosynthesis that operates independently of seasonal and circadian limitations, improvements in resource and metabolic efficiency, customized plant architecture, and the reliable, controllable production of high-value compounds. These capabilities position CEA as both a versatile research platform and an efficient, high-yielding production system, bridging fundamental discoveries with real-world crop outcomes to support sustainable, climate-resilient agriculture into the future.