Meeting the increasing global demand for food in the face of limited arable land and diverse environmental constraints remains a fundamental challenge in modern agriculture.Since the Green Revolution in the 1950s to 1...Meeting the increasing global demand for food in the face of limited arable land and diverse environmental constraints remains a fundamental challenge in modern agriculture.Since the Green Revolution in the 1950s to 1970s,improvements in developmental traits,such as plant nutrition,morphology and inflorescence architecture,have led to a threefold or even higher increase in the yields of our major staple cereals,including rice(Oryza sativa L.),maize(Zea mays L.)and wheat(Triticum aestivum L.)[[1],[2],[3]].Throughout their evolutionary history,Poaceae species have developed distinctive inflorescence architectures that significantly influence grain number per spike/panicle,thereby impacting overall yield.In this perspective,we provide a comparative analysis of the mechanisms underlying inflorescence development in major cereal crops,with a focus on wheat,and examine their differential contributions to yield performance.Our findings suggest that a systematic,multi-dimensional comparative approach,assessing both conserved and divergent regulatory pathways governing inflorescence architecture,holds great promise for substantially enhancing the yield of wheat and other cereal crops.展开更多
基金supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China(2024YFF1000700)the National Natural Science Foundation of China(32470378 and 32300307)the German Research Council(DFG)via Research Unit 5235(CSCS:Cereal Stem Cell Systems).
文摘Meeting the increasing global demand for food in the face of limited arable land and diverse environmental constraints remains a fundamental challenge in modern agriculture.Since the Green Revolution in the 1950s to 1970s,improvements in developmental traits,such as plant nutrition,morphology and inflorescence architecture,have led to a threefold or even higher increase in the yields of our major staple cereals,including rice(Oryza sativa L.),maize(Zea mays L.)and wheat(Triticum aestivum L.)[[1],[2],[3]].Throughout their evolutionary history,Poaceae species have developed distinctive inflorescence architectures that significantly influence grain number per spike/panicle,thereby impacting overall yield.In this perspective,we provide a comparative analysis of the mechanisms underlying inflorescence development in major cereal crops,with a focus on wheat,and examine their differential contributions to yield performance.Our findings suggest that a systematic,multi-dimensional comparative approach,assessing both conserved and divergent regulatory pathways governing inflorescence architecture,holds great promise for substantially enhancing the yield of wheat and other cereal crops.
