Asymmetry of investment in crop research leads to knowledge gaps and lostopportunities to accelerate genetic gain through identifying new sources andcombinations of traits and alleles. On the basis of consultation with scientistsfrom most major seed companies, we identified several research areas withthree common features: (i) relatively underrepresented in the literature; (ii) highprobability of boosting productivity in a wide range of crops and environments;and (iii) could be researched in‘precompetitive’space, leveraging previousknowledge, and thereby improving models that guide crop breeding and man-agement decisions. Areas identified included research into hormones, recombi-nation, respiration, roots, and source–sink, which, along with new opportunitiesin phenomics, genomics, and bioinformatics, make it more feasible to explorecrop genetic resources and improve breeding strategies.