Plant breeding has been successful in adapting crops worldwide with one of the latest challenges being adaption to warmer days and nights. Taking wheat as a case study, here we show current elite nurseries express a range of levels of heat adaptation. Generally, the higher the selection ratio for yield response under warming, the less stable the yield response across environments. Specifically, less than one-third of genotypes trialled adapted well to the 0.26 °C warming of the last decade, and the phenotypes were stable in only 26% of environments. With continued warming, selection ratio falls 8.5% and stability falls 8.7% for each 1 °C increase in local temperature. Overall, faced with more climate variability, breeders need to revisit their breeding strategies to integrate genetic diversity that confers climate resilience without penalties to productivity in favourable seasons.

植物育种已成功地适应了世界各地的作物，最新的挑战之一是适应温暖的白天和夜晚。以小麦为例，我们在这里展示了当前的精英苗圃表现出一系列的热适应水平。一般来说，变暖条件下产量响应的选择比越高，不同环境下产量响应的稳定性就越差。具体而言，只有不到三分之一的试验基因型能够很好地适应过去十年 0.26 °C 的变暖，并且表型仅在 26% 的环境中保持稳定。随着持续变暖，局部温度每升高 1 °C，选择率下降 8.5%，稳定性下降 8.7%。总体而言，面对更多的气候变化，育种者需要重新审视其育种策略，整合遗传多样性，从而赋予气候适应力，同时又不影响有利季节的生产力。