Stress-Resilient Maize for Climate-Vulnerable Environments

Dear Colleagues,

Maize (Zea mays L.) is an important food, nutrition, and climate security crop around the world. Global climate fluctuations bring a range of abiotic stresses that interfere with maize growth and development, leading to crop yield losses. Additionally, several environmental and edaphic factors such as the rising mean temperature, regional and extreme heat waves, drought spells, expanding soil acidity and salinity, nutrient imbalance, and accumulation of toxic heavy metals in soil are associated with climate change. Numerous climate modelling studies have suggested that heat stress events will be more frequent in a future environment, which may signify a major constraint to crop productivity and global food security. Recent advances in genomics and data analysis provide opportunities to unlock the genetic potential of maize, leading to new cultivars that are disease-resistant, drought-proof and more nutritious.

The Special Issue of Plants, entitled “Stress-Resilient Maize for Climate-Vulnerable Environments”, provides a unique opportunity to publish the most recent research findings: from integrated genomics to cropping systems related to key aspects for genetic, genomic, agronomic and other omics trait-related improvements, and the breeding of maize and their efficient cultivation management strategies. With the advent of new omics technologies, such as genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics, the efficiency and efficacy of unearthing information on pathways associated with abiotic stress resilience have improved in maize. Identifying the contributions of climate factors and cropping systems to maize yield is significant for the assessment of climate change impacts on maize production.

Much remains to be discovered in this field; thus, it is of the utmost importance to contribute your scientific findings to accelerate the breeding, agronomic performance, and sustainability of maize production to worldwide.

We welcome all article types related, but not limited, to the following topics:

• Integration of novel breeding tools, including genome-wide association studies (GWAS), genomic selection (GS) and double haploid (DH) technology to fast-track the stress-resilience breeding pipeline;
• Developing stress-resilient maize by integrating novel tools in mainstream breeding;
• Developments of multi-omics and breeding strategies for abiotic stress tolerance in maize (Zea mays);
• The role of crop management practices and adaptation options to minimize the impact of climate change on maize (Zea mays);
• Nutrient balance in maize cropping systems and challenges for their sustainability;
• Maize nutrition under climate change: biofortified maize strengthen food systems and mitigate climate change losses;
• New high-yielding, stress-resilient and nutritious maize varieties;
• Deployment of improved climate-resilient maize varieties in the semiarid conditions;
• Availability and absorption of soil water in a high water table areas by maize;
• Partitioning of nitrogen in different organs of maize;
• Avoidance of excess use of fertilizers in order to improve plants, the soil and the environment;
• Yield gap analysis: an experimental assessment related to the production of maize.

Dr. Ivica G. Djalović
Dr. David Caparros-Ruiz
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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