Engineering photorespiratory bypasses has emerged as a powerful approach to reduce energy losses associated with photorespiration. By introducing alternative metabolic routes to process the products of Rubisco oxygenation, researchers have demonstrated significant improvements in biomass production under field conditions . The work of Xu et al. (2021) has provided new insights into the metabolic origins of nonphotorespiratory CO2 release during photosynthesis, highlighting additional targets for optimization . These diverse approaches to enhancing photosynthetic efficiency, often used in combination, hold great promise for developing the next generation of highyielding crops capable of meeting the growing global demand for food and biomass.