Heat stress has become one of the major threats to agricultural production. With the sharp increase in future food demand, breeding heat-tolerant crop varieties has become an urgent task for ensuring food security. In a recent review article published in aBIOTECH, Xiong et al. summarizes the latest research on the impact of heat stress (HS) on major cereal crops at various developmental stages. The review highlights the use of beneficial natural variants and gene-editing techniques to improve crop tolerance to heat stress, emphasizing the value of alleles associated with thermomemory, combined stress tolerance, and the balance between stress responses and growth.