Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) is a premier global crop, celebrated not only for its economic importance but also as a fundamental “well-being food” that provides essential vitamins, minerals, and potent antioxidants. This review highlights the transformative impact of CRISPR/Cas9 and next-generation precision tools, such as base and prime editing, on modern tomato breeding. Beyond functional genomics, we focus on the strategic engineering of tomato to maximize productivity through fruit size optimization and the biofortification of high-value metabolites (e.g., GABA, lycopene, and vitamins). Furthermore, we examine recent advances in developing multi-stress resilience against both biotic and abiotic challenges. A significant emphasis is placed on re-designing plant architecture and developmental traits to tailor tomato varieties for future agricultural systems, particularly indoor and vertical farming. By advanced delivery methods, CRISPR technologies offer unprecedented potential to accelerate the development of “smart” tomato, ensuring sustainable agriculture and global food security in a changing climate.

Temperatures that extend beyond normal levels of tolerance cause severe stress to plants, especially during the reproductive and grain filling/ripening stages. Heat stress leads to serious yield losses in many crop plants, including rice (Oryza sativa). In view of the current scenario of global climate change, frequent fluctuations and a significant increase in average temperatures will pose challenges to protecting those yields. Therefore, elucidating the molecular mechanisms that make crop plants more tolerant of heat, particularly in organs at the reproductive stage, is of utmost importance. Precise molecular information will be helpful for the manipulation and exploration of relevant genes for use in crop improvement programs. In this review, we highlight recent progress in research on the molecular responses to high temperatures in pollen and seed and provide a perspective on the development of heat tolerance in rice cultivars. The responsible mechanism is a very complex phenomenon that involves several biochemical and physiological changes, molecular responses, and a series of signal transductions. Improving our understanding requires detailed knowledge at various omics levels. Recent technological advancements have accelerated genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics studies in rice, a model crop plant. Here, we discuss those technological and omics approaches being taken to investigate the heat tolerance mechanism, particularly in rice. In addition, we address the tools being used to identify key genes and QTLs that can then be utilized for molecular breeding and biotechnology.

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