Woody plants, comprising forest and fruit tree species, provide essential ecological and economic benefits to society. Their genetic improvement is challenging due to long generation intervals and high heterozygosity. Genetic transformation, which combines targeted DNA delivery with plant regeneration from transformed cells, offers a powerful alternative to accelerating their domestication and improvement. Agrobacterium tumefaciens, Rhizobium rhizogenes, and particle bombardment have been widely used for DNA delivery into a wide variety of explants, including leaves, stems, hypocotyls, roots, and embryos, with regeneration occurring via direct organogenesis, callus-mediated organogenesis, somatic embryogenesis, or hairy root formation. Despite successes, conventional approaches are hampered by low efficiency, genotype dependency, and a reliance on challenging tissue culture. This review provides a critical analysis of the current landscape in woody plant transformation, moving beyond a simple summary of techniques to evaluate the co-evolution of established platforms with disruptive technologies. Key advances among these include the use of developmental regulators to engineer regeneration, the rise in in planta systems to bypass tissue culture, and the imperative for DNA-free genome editing to meet regulatory and public expectations. By examining species-specific breakthroughs in key genera, including Populus, Malus, Citrus, and Pinus, this review highlights a paradigm shift from empirical optimization towards rational, predictable engineering of woody plants for a sustainable future.

Sorghum is the third most important food crop, grown on nearly 40 million ha globally, and is known for its resilience under unfavorable conditions. Sorghum is reported to have a strong biological nitrification inhibition (BNI) capacity in root systems, a plant function that suppresses soil nitrifier activity, which in turn prevents the nitrogen (N) loss by reducing nitrous oxide (N₂O), nitric oxide (NO) emission, and nitrate (NO₃⁻) leaching into water bodies. Sorgoleone, a major hydrophobic phytochemical released from sorghum roots, provides a significant part of BNI function in sorghum. The function of sorgoleone in suppressing nitrifying bacteria in pure cultures has been established. In addition, sorgoleone suppresses transformation of ammonium (NH₃) to NO₃⁻ and N₂O emissions from soils. Therefore, introducing high‐sorgoleone phenotype into elite sorghum hybrids can increase nitrogen use efficiency while decreasing the environmental footprint of sorghum production systems. In recent years, significant progress has been made in identifying the mechanisms of sorgoleone production and secretion. Moreover, studies using both wild accessions and elite breeding materials reported significant genetic variation for sorgoleone secretion, and sorgoleone secretion was found to be highly heritable, making it a good target for breeding. This review distills the current understanding of sorgoleone release in relation to BNI function and opportunities to exploit this trait. Also, we provide our assessment for genetic interventions of Sorgoleone biosynthesis and secretion pathways to enhance BNI capacity in sorghum. High‐BNI sorghum hybrids can be an important component of low‐nitrifying, low‐N₂O‐emitting agricultural production systems that are eco‐friendly, productive, and sustainable.