Some champions can make a difference, but to win matches and tournaments, there must be chemistry among the players. The same happens for the effort to increase the productivity of crop plants. Hunting down the single key gene, hoping it will work the miracle, is not enough. One must focus on the harmony of genetic combinations, through approaches that marry the most advanced technologies with agronomic knowledge. In short, handling DNA and test tubes is fine, but it is equally important to know what actually works when the plants reach the field. That’s the message a group of influential researchers such as Pamela Ronald of the University of California at Davis delivered to the pages of Nature in a commentary provocatively titled “Genetic modification can improve crop yields – but stop overselling it”.

“Especially in the context of climate change and a growing human population, the growth of misleading claims around yields has become a cause of concern to us. As plant breeders, quantitative geneticists, evolutionary biologists and plant biologists, many of us have worked on national projects or on crop breeding in collaboration with multinational companies”, they write.

“To encourage more impactful science, we ask researchers, reviewers and journal editors to ensure that at least five criteria are met whenever claims are made about the effects of single genes or a few genes on the yield of a crop. We also urge researchers across our range of disciplines to work together much more than they currently do, and to use well-established yield-testing approaches”. Here is the full text.