On the subject of horticulture, there are still a great many amazing plants that aren't well understood and which resist cultivation. In addition it seems some fundamentally accepted default processes in the horticultural industry are ripe for review - for example, I read a paper recently which threw the conventional root hormone application wisdom for cuttings out the window: in that study it was found application atop a cutting (in the species covered) was superior to application below a cutting as conventionally taught. If things this fundamental are up for discussion, it would seem clear that we are really only at the relative tip of the iceberg in our understanding of biological systems and horticultural practice.

I suspect advancements in the next few years in areas like: new high yield crop combinations, improved robotic tilling/sewing/fertilizing/weeding/harvesting mechanisms, increased understanding of a broader variety of species seed germination requirements, combined horticulture/mycoculture/bryoculture strategies, autonomous tissue culture, autonomous offshore aquaculture and harvesting, etc. Robotics really should be a huge enabler here.

I already have a robotics factory in China and the personal and commercial motivation to build solutions in this space and am actively studying horticulture. Email me if you'd like to collaborate, have agricultural know-how and/or land and the medium to long term interest to collaborate, fellow startups welcome. Basically I am constrained by available land and time, don't believe in the long term economics of indoor/heavily synthetic conditions, and believe we are fundamentally at a crossroads for more sustainable, higher density agricultural practices enabled by new, more precise technology and more holistic conceptions of agricultural systems.