Editor's choice: agronomy and climate change

Climate change and its risk to food security is growing societal concern worldwide.

In response to this threat a global research effort is underway to better understand the effects of these changes, most particularly heat and drought, on crop production, and devise ways for these issues to be surmounted.

This Collection highlights some of our most thought-provoking articles on the topic: beginning with an overview of the effects of climate change on agronomy at the continental scale, we shift focus to the physiological responses of key food crops to heat and drought, the molecular mechanisms controlling those changes, and finally, how this understanding can be harnessed to help secure the future of crop production.