Transcending the jasmonate-mediated growth–defense trade-off: Pathways to unlocking plant potential

Jasmonate (JA) is a key phytohormone that balances defense and growth processes to orchestrate plant survival in response to external conditions. Although JA-mediated resistance to biotic and abiotic threats offers promising avenues for crop improvement, its concurrent growth suppression poses a fundamental challenge in agricultural practices. This review synthesizes recent advances in the understanding of the JA-mediated growth-defense trade-off (GDT), with a special focus on innovative strategies to decouple JA-induced defenses from growth inhibition, including expanding photosynthetic capacity, rewiring JA signaling, optimizing rapid JA bursts, and degrading targeted proteins via subtype-selective JA agonists. We propose future research directions for further transcending JA-mediated GDT in crops, such as fine-tuning chloroplast function, manipulating damage-associated molecular patterns signaling, and remodeling JA regulators. By integrating these insights, we provide a strategic framework for fundamentally re-engineering JA pathways to develop plants with greater resilience and sustained productivity.