Improving photosynthetic efficiency toward food security: Strategies, advances, and perspectives.

Photosynthesis in crops and natural vegetation allows light energy to be converted into chemical energy and thus forms the foundation for almost all terrestrial trophic networks on Earth. The efficiency of photosynthetic energy conversion plays a crucial role in determining the portion of incident solar radiation that can be used to generate plant biomass throughout a growth season. Consequently, alongside the factors such as resource availability, crop management, crop selection, maintenance costs, and intrinsic yield potential, photosynthetic energy use efficiency significantly influences crop yield. Photosynthetic efficiency is relevant to sustainability and food security because it affects water use efficiency, nutrient use efficiency, and land use efficiency. This review focuses specifically on the potential for improvements in photosynthetic efficiency to drive a sustainable increase in crop yields. We discuss bypassing photorespiration, enhancing light use efficiency, harnessing natural variation in photosynthetic parameters for breeding purposes, and adopting new-to-nature approaches that show promise for achieving unprecedented gains in photosynthetic efficiency. The role of photosynthetic energy conversion efficiency in determining solar radiation utilization for plant biomass generation is pivotal. Alongside other factors, it notably affects crop yield. In this review, the authors discuss the potential strategies that can enhance crop yields, such as the modification of photorespiration, optimizing light use, leveraging genetic variation in photosynthetic parameters for breeding, and adopting innovative new-to-nature synthetic biology approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]