Overview

“Designing a nitrogen-efficient cold-tolerant maize for modern agricultural systems” (Ojeda-Rivera et al., 2025) introduces the CERCA ideotype—a conceptual maize blueprint that synchronizes crop growth with natural nitrogen cycling.

The paper identifies long-standing bottlenecks in nitrogen use efficiency and proposes a physiological and genetic framework to develop maize varieties that thrive in temperate climates while reducing agricultural runoff.