In recent decades, shifts in the spatiotemporal patterns of precipitation and extreme temperatures have contributed to more frequent droughts. These changes impact not only agricultural production but also food security, ecological systems, and social stability. Advanced techniques such as machine learning and deep learning models outperform traditional models by improving meteorological drought prediction. Specifically, this study proposes a novel model named the multivariate feature aggregation-based temporal convolutional network for meteorological drought spatiotemporal prediction (STAT-LSTM). The method consists of three parts: a feature aggregation module, which aggregates multivariate features to extract initial features; a self-attention-temporal convolutional network (SA-TCN), which extracts time series features and uses the self-attention module’s weighting mechanism to automatically capture global dependencies in the sequential data; and a long short-term memory network (LSTM), which captures long-term dependencies. The performance of the STAT-LSTM model was assessed and compared via performance indicators (i.e., MAE, RMSE, and R\(^2\)). The results indicated that STAT-LSTM provided the most accurate SPEI prediction (MAE = 0.474, RMSE = 0.63, and R\(^2\) = 0.613 for SPEI-3; MAE = 0.356, RMSE = 0.468, and R\(^2\) = 0.748 for SPEI-6; MAE = 0.284, RMSE = 0.437, and R\(^2\) = 0.813 for SPEI-9; and MAE = 0.182, RMSE = 0.267, and R\(^2\) = 0.934 for SPEI-12).

The convergence of agricultural biotechnology and artificial intelligence is reshaping modern crop improvement. Despite a surge of studies integrating artificial intelligence and biotechnology, the rapidly expanding literature on intelligent crop breeding remains fragmented across molecular, phenotypic, and computational dimensions. Existing reviews often rely on traditional bibliometric or narrative approaches that fail to capture the deep semantic evolution of research themes. To address this gap, this study employs the BERTopic model to systematically analyze 1867 articles (1995–2025, WoS Core Collection), mapping the thematic landscape and temporal evolution of intelligent crop breeding and revealing how methodological and application-oriented domains have co-evolved over time. Eight core topics emerge, i.e., (T0) genomic prediction and genotype–environment modeling; (T1) UAV remote sensing and multimodal phenotyping; (T2) stress-tolerant breeding and root phenotypes; (T3) ear/pod counting with deep learning; (T4) grain trait representation and evaluation; (T5) CRISPR and genome editing; (T6) spike structure recognition and 3D modeling; and (T7) maize tassel detection and developmental staging. Topic-evolution analyses indicate a co-development pattern, where genomic prediction provides a stable methodological backbone, while phenomics (UAV/multimodal imaging, organ-level detection, and 3D reconstruction) propels application-oriented advances. Attention dynamics reveal increasing momentum in image-based counting (T3), grain quality traits (T4), and CRISPR-enabled editing (T5), alongside a plateau in traditional mainstays (T0, T1) and mild cooling in root phenotyping under abiotic stress (T2). Quality stratification (citation quartiles, Q1–Q4) shows high-impact concentration in T0/T1 and a growing tail of application-driven work across T3–T7. Journal analysis reveals a complementary publication ecosystem: Frontiers in Plant Science and Plant Methods anchor cross-disciplinary dissemination; Remote Sensing and Computers and Electronics in Agriculture host engineering-centric phenomics; genetics/breeding journals sustain T0/T2; and molecular journals curate T5. These findings provide an integrated overview of methods, applications, and publication venues, offering practical guidance for research planning, cross-field collaboration, and translational innovation in intelligent crop breeding.

Agricultural science and technology policies (ASTPs) have played a pivotal role in shaping agricultural innovation, sustainability, and cleaner production practices. Understanding how ASTPs diffuse is essential for optimizing policy design and advancing the green transition in agriculture. This study aims to investigate the diffusion of ASTPs in China, using a quantitative citation-based approach. The goal is to explore diffusion patterns, topic characteristics, and historical trajectories of ASTPs, thereby providing insights into policy transmission mechanisms that can inform future policy improvements. We analyze 3207 ASTP documents, focusing on policy citation links to examine the distribution, diffusion characteristics, and dynamics of policies. The analysis includes tracking topic evolution and identifying key policies while estimating the main diffusion paths. The results show that the top-down diffusion model is the dominant pattern of policy transmission, exhibiting the highest diffusion speed and both short- and long-term impacts. ASTPs have progressively expanded toward industrialization, informatization, and green development, with increased policy transmission efficiency. The diffusion process has formed three primary pathways: (i) enhancing agricultural innovation capacity, (ii) accelerating the transformation of technological achievements, and (iii) improving the agricultural science and technology innovation system. These pathways are critical to advancing sustainable and cleaner agricultural production. This study provides valuable insights into the diffusion of ASTPs and highlights key pathways for policy optimization. The findings suggest that enhancing policy frameworks and improving policy implementation efficiency will be crucial for facilitating the transition toward sustainable, low-carbon, and environmentally friendly agricultural practices. Future research should refine data sources and incorporate semantic analysis to capture more detailed policy transmission mechanisms.

Accurate maize yield prediction across diverse environments is pivotal for modern breeding programs. While machine learning (ML) excels at capturing non-linear environmental effects, Genomic Best Linear Unbiased Prediction (GBLUP) remains a benchmark for modeling polygenic small-effect contributions. However, principled integration of these paradigms—while explicitly accounting for genotype-by-environment interaction (G×E)—remains a formidable challenge. We propose a two-step framework evaluated on the Genomes to Fields (G2F) 2022 dataset. In Step 1, ML models are employed to fit environmental main effects; in Step 2, genomic residuals are modeled via additive-dominance relationship matrices, augmented by an explicit low-rank G×E matrix. Candidate interaction markers were screened through plasticity-based genome-wide association studies (GWAS) across six phenotypic stability metrics and used to construct a low-rank candidate G×E representation, with a cross-validation-selected scaling parameter applied to control the contribution of the predicted G×E component. TwoStep_G×E_alpha0.33, achieved a within–environment Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC) of 0.376, outperformed both GBLUP and the competition-winning model (PCC = 0.357) in within-environment ranking. Furthermore, environment-adaptive selection yielded a genetic gain of 0.454 Mg ha⁻¹, representing a 34.7% improvement over GBLUP. Overall, the proposed framework provides a practical approach for environment-specific yield prediction and adaptive selection in maize breeding.

Weather–yield relationships in arid agricultural regions are shaped jointly by temperature and precipitation exposure, irrigation conditions, crop choice, and management under water constraints. This study combines county-level cotton yield and maize grain-yield data for Xinjiang, China, from 2000 to 2020 with daily meteorological station records assigned to county-level weather exposures. We estimate two-way fixed-effects models that include temperature degree-day indicators and a quadratic precipitation term to examine crop-specific weather–yield associations in irrigation-intensive oasis agriculture. The baseline two-way fixed-effects estimates indicate that a 100 °C d increase in growing degree days is associated with a 2.85% increase in cotton yield and a 1.88% decrease in maize yield. For cotton, the baseline and common-trend specifications indicate a convex precipitation–yield association, with an estimated turning point of 141.07 mm (95% CI: 27.75–225.63 mm), while the pattern is less stable under prefecture-by-year fixed effects. Maize yield is more consistently negatively associated with growing-season heat accumulation. Post-2010 interaction terms indicate crop-differentiated changes in heat sensitivity, consistent with different temporal evolution of weather–yield associations across cotton and maize. Overall, the results show that climate-risk assessment in irrigation-intensive arid agriculture should distinguish between crop types, precipitation regimes, and the management conditions under which weather exposure is translated into yield outcomes.