Ginsenoside Rg1 Alleviates Lead-Induced Neurotoxicity Through Nrf2-Associated Modulation of Oxidative Stress and Ferroptosis.

With the global population on course to reach nine to ten billion people by mid-century, food production must increase by an estimated 60–80 percent—a challenge compounded by accelerating climate change and the inherently slow pace of conventional crop improvement [,,]. The rate at which new cultivars can be developed is not primarily limited by a shortage of useful genetic diversity, but rather by the time needed to convert that diversity into fully homozygous, agronomically stable lines suitable for field evaluation. In self-pollinating species such as wheat, this process involves four to six rounds of self-pollination after the initial cross, each round confined to one growing season. Once multi-environment testing and seed multiplication are included, the total duration from cross to registered variety routinely spans ten to fifteen years [,]. This generation time constraint is now intersecting with a shifting regulatory landscape in Europe: on 17 June 2026, the European Parliament gave final approval to the new genomic technique (NGT) regulation, which establishes a simplified genetically modified organism (GMO)-exempt pathway for Category 1 plants deemed equivalent to conventionally bred varieties []. Because annual genetic gain is inversely proportional to breeding cycle length for a given selection intensity and selection accuracy, shortening the years required per generation can markedly increase the rate of gain achievable per calendar year; speed breeding has been reported to translate this relationship into practice, for example, by shortening a wheat breeding cycle from twelve to seven years when combined with genomic selection. Speed breeding (SB) is a controlled-environment generation advancement technique that compresses the vegetative and reproductive phases of the plant life cycle by simultaneously manipulating photoperiod, light quality and intensity, temperature, and post-harvest seed handling, allowing several generations to be completed within a single calendar year rather than one. Its principal advantage is a substantial reduction in the time required to reach a fully homozygous, evaluable line, which shortens the interval between the initial cross and cultivar release. Its principal limitations are the need for dedicated controlled-environment infrastructure, the restricted set of agronomically important traits that can be reliably expressed or selected under artificial conditions, and a strongly genotype-dependent efficacy. These aspects are examined in detail in and .