Plant breeders face multiple global challenges that affect food security, productivity, accessibility, and nutritional quality. One major challenge for plant breeders is developing environmentally resilient crop cultivars in response to rapid shifts in cultivation conditions and resources due to climate change. Plant breeders rely on different crop genetic resources, breeding tools, and methods to incorporate genetic diversity into commercialized cultivars. Breeders use genetic diversity to develop new cultivars with improved agronomics, such as higher yield, biotic and abiotic stress tolerance, and to improve the nutritional quality of foods for a growing world population. Plant breeders perform the essential task of strategic integration of new genetic diversity while preserving important economic traits of individual crops such as relative maturity (maize, Zea mays L.), fruit type (tomato, Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.), plant type (lettuce Lactuca sativa L.), and habitat type (canola, Brassica napus L.) that are highly specialized for specific consumer preferences or market needs. This review provides an industry perspective on how genetic diversity is incorporated for crop improvement by (a) using a real‐life example to highlight the vast amount of genetic diversity that exists in plants, (b) providing a conceptual example to illustrate strategic challenges a breeder faces while incorporating diversity, (c) describing how and why it can a decade or more to incorporate diversity into commercialized cultivars, even when advanced tools and technologies are used, and (d) sharing factors that plant breeders consider when applying various tools, including genome editing, at different stages of plant breeding.

中文翻译：

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遗传多样性对于植物育种以改善作物必不可少

植物育种者面临着影响粮食安全，生产力，可及性和营养质量的多个全球性挑战。植物育种者面临的一项主要挑战是开发适应环境的农作物品种，以应对气候变化导致的种植条件和资源的快速变化。植物育种者依靠不同的作物遗传资源，育种工具和方法将遗传多样性纳入商业化品种。育种者利用遗传多样性来开发具有改良农艺学的新品种，例如更高的产量，对生物和非生物的胁迫耐受性，以及为日益增长的世界人口提高食品的营养质量。玉米（Zea mays L.），果实类型（番茄，番茄 ），植物类型（莴苣Lactuca sativa L.）和栖息地类型（芥花油菜，甘蓝型油菜）L.）专门针对特定的消费者偏好或市场需求。这篇综述提供了一种行业观点，即如何通过以下方式整合遗传多样性以改善作物：（a）以现实生活中的例子来突出植物中存在的大量遗传多样性，（b）提供一个概念性的例子来说明战略挑战a育种者在融合多样性的同时面临着挑战；（c）描述了即使在使用先进工具和技术的情况下，如何以及为何能够在十年或更长时间内将多样性融合到商业化品种中；以及（d）分享植物育种者在使用各种工具时考虑的因素，包括在植物育种的不同阶段进行基因组编辑。