Small grain cereals such as wheat, rice and barley are among the most important crops worldwide. Any attempt to increase crop productivity and stability through breeding implies developing new strategies for plant phenotyping, including defining ideotype attributes for selection. Recently, the role of non-foliar photosynthetic organs, particularly the inflorescences, has received increasing attention. For example, ear photosynthesis has been reported to be a major contributor to grain filling in wheat and barley under stress and good agronomic conditions. This review provides an overview of the particular characteristics of the ear that makes this photosynthetic organ better adapted to grain filling than the flag leaf and revises potential metabolic and molecular traits that merit further research as targets for cereal improvement. Currently, the absence of high-throughput phenotyping methods limits the inclusion of ear photosynthesis in the breeding agenda. In this regard, a number of different approaches are presented.

中文翻译：

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提高C3谷物产量和稳定性的新途径：探索耳朵的光合作用。

小麦，水稻和大麦等小谷物是世界上最重要的农作物之一。通过育种来提高作物生产力和稳定性的任何尝试都意味着开发植物表型的新策略，包括定义选择的表型属性。近来，非叶光合器官的作用，特别是花序的作用已受到越来越多的关注。例如，据报道，在胁迫和良好的农艺条件下，耳朵的光合作用是小麦和大麦籽粒填充的主要贡献者。这篇综述概述了耳朵的特殊特征，使该光合器官比旗叶更适合谷物填充，并修改了潜在的代谢和分子性状，值得进一步研究作为谷物改良的目标。目前，高通量表型方法的缺乏限制了耳朵光合作用被列入育种议程。在这方面，提出了许多不同的方法。