Advancing lodging resistance in maize: Integrating genetic, hormonal, and agronomic insights for sustainable crop productivity

• Investigates the detrimental effects of lodging on crop productivity, emphasizing the interplay between environmental factors and hormonal regulation. • Highlights recent breakthroughs in genetic selection, breeding strategies, and CRISPR-based approaches to improve lodging resistance. • Explores the pivotal role of plant hormones and innovative technologies in strengthening stem architecture and mitigating lodging risks. Crop lodging, characterized by the bending or breaking of plant stems, poses a significant challenge to global food security by reducing crop yields and complicating harvesting processes. This review explores the factors influencing lodging susceptibility, including environmental conditions, genetic traits, fertilizer management, pathogens, and hormonal regulation. Recent advancements in maize research have uncovered critical genetic traits and elucidated the roles of key hormonal pathways—such as gibberellin (GA), strigolactone (SL), auxin, and ethylene—in modulating stem elongation, tillering angles, and root system architecture. These pathways collectively shape crop architecture, with GA and SL contributing to stalk strength, and auxin and ethylene enhancing root development and plant stability. Concurrently, agronomic interventions, such as optimized planting density and nutrient management, have improved stem integrity and mitigated lodging risk. By integrating genetic, hormonal, and agronomic knowledge, researchers have made remarkable progress in developing maize varieties that resist lodging, enhancing crop resilience and yield stability under various environmental conditions. Future research should focus on unraveling the molecular and genetic mechanisms underlying lodging resistance, addressing technical limitations in implementation, and advancing sustainable agricultural practices to secure global food production and ensure long-term productivity.