CSI Seminar Ethan Triplett, Apr 14 at 11 AM CT
The Center for Sorghum Improvement (CSI) will host a virtual seminar by Dr. Ethan Triplett, Director of Crop Improvement for the United Sorghum Checkoff Program, National Sorghum Producers, on Tuesday, April 14 at 11:00 AM CT. His talk, titled “Translation, Not Just Innovation: Delivering Agriculture that Works,” will focus on reframing agricultural innovation as a translation challenge, emphasizing that impact depends on aligning research with the practical constraints of supply sheds and supply chains and arguing for a system-first approach that engages stakeholders to ensure innovations are scalable, adoptable, and grounded in real-world value creation.
The abstract of Dr. Triplett’s presentation is provided below:
Agricultural innovation rarely fails in discovery; it fails in translation. Outcomes are constrained by supply sheds, which define where production can scale, and by supply chains, which determine whether products can be aggregated, verified, and valued. Yet research often prioritizes literature-defined gaps over system-defined needs, producing solutions that are novel but not adoptable. This talk reframes innovation as a translation problem and argues that effective work begins with the system by engaging producers, processors, and end users to define constraints, align incentives, and identify where value can move, so research is grounded in operational reality and innovation becomes not just publishable, but deployable.
For information on this and future seminars visit the CSI seminar webpage.
