We are fully aware of the fact that characteristics in Arabidopsis are not always easily translatable to desired traits in agronomically relevant crops. So, dependent on the biological question, it is feasible to directly go for crop species such as maize. On the other hand, to fully capture the potential of systems biology approaches, we may ask the initial question in Arabidopsis and validate the major results in crop species. Our good relationship with the Institute for Agricultural and Fisheries Research (ILVO), also located in the Ghent area, offers several opportunities to translate our research results to different crop species. In addition, we are very happy to test with industrial partners the knowledge we gained in our model plants in their crop species.