ModelForm validation of foreign keys - extra database queries and performance bottleneck

I have a model that has a foreign key relation to a number of other objects.

When saving an instance of this model from the admin (or a ModelForm), I see plenty of extra and redundant database calls. 

For a single record it wouldn't make much of a difference, but when using the same ModeForm to do some batch upload these become the bottleneck in the process.

Has anyone bumped into the same performance bottleneck?
Has anyone developed some solution for this?

By logging all database queries and some digging in the code, here's my analysis of what is happening:

1. Open the admin editing screen for a single record.  
   I leave all fields to the original value, except for a field (not one of the foreign key fields)
   
2. When saving the record, the first query reads the existing record:
         select field1, field2, field3, .... from mytable;
3. During the form/model validation, I get an extra database query for each of the foreign key fields.
   It is generated from the to_python method of django.forms.models.ModelChoiceField:
         select field_a, field_b, field_c, field, ... from related_table where pk = 'id_from_first_query';
4. During the form/model validation, I get another database query for each of the foreign key fields.
   It verifies that the values actually exists in the database:
        select (1) from related_table where pk = 'value from form';     

The queries in step 3 and 4 are redundant if the field hasn't changed. The first query gives enough data to allow us to verify that the new form value and the foreign key field on the existing instance are equal. I am using django 1.11.

The same queries, except 2, are executed when I create a new record. The queries in step 4 are redundant then - we just retrieved the values from the database.

Looking forward to any insights and hints...


Johan

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