There is an urgent need for an agricultural revolution to generate climate-smart cultivars, which combine proven qualities with novel traits that adapt crop plants to extremes, including severe heat and drought periods. Novel breeding technologies can make an important difference to enable farmers to achieve high yields with resilient crops, thus securing nutrition for the world population.

Our recent discovery that plant egg cells can fuse with two sperm to give rise to offspring with three instead of two parents, one mother and two fathers, is a game changer in the field of plant reproduction. It can lead to a new plant breeding strategy with economic benefits expected to positively affect the social welfare of farmers as well as upstream and downstream industries related to the agricultural value chain.