Hi,
There is an important US National Science Foundation initiative to support development of new infrastructure for plant science. They are soliciting input on "grand challenges" in plant sciences. Various people have suggested that predicting phenotypes from genotypes using ecophysiological models is arguably _THE_ challenge of plant science.
For more information, please check:
http://iplantcollaborative.org/homehttp://iplantcollaborative.org/resources/community-wiki
Best regards,
Jeff White