Molecular Mechanisms and Breeding Techniques of Forage Crops

A special issue of Agriculture (ISSN 2077-0472). This special issue belongs to the section "Crop Genetics, Genomics and Breeding".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 October 2025 | Viewed by 113

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
College of Animal Science and Technology, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225009, China
Interests: grass; abiotic stress; gene function; genome; growth and development
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Guest Editor
College of Agro-Grassland Science, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China
Interests: forage; gene function; molecular breeding; environmental stress; heat stress
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Guest Editor
Department of Pratacultural Sciences, College of Agronomy, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha 410128, China
Interests: Forage crop; QTL; GWAS; molecular breeding; agronomic trait
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Forage crops not only play crucial roles in livestock industries in the world but are also important for environmental protection and soil conservation. In these years, global change induces extreme environmental stresses, such as drought, heat, cold, and salinity, that inhibit the growth and yield of forage crops. Availability of varieties of forage crops that have high qualities and yields under different environmental conditions is rather necessary. Previously, the qualities of many forage species had been improved by traditional hybrid breeding methods, but due to the long breeding cycles, the complex nature of traits, and the polyploidy of the forage crops, rapid and precision breeding were hindered. Recently, with the development of genetics and molecular breeding techniques, many functional genes and quantitative trait loci (QTLs) have been identified, which will accelerate the breeding work in forage crops.

This Special Issue focuses on the molecular mechanisms of the genes in growth and development regulation, environmental stress response, and yield improvement. This Special Issue will fully embrace the studies related to molecular breeding of forage crops, including gene function identification, QTL mapping, and genome-wide association studies (GWASs) that relate to certain traits of the forage crops, as well as the breeding technologies of the forage crops. This Special Issue invites all types of articles, including primary research, reviews, and commentaries.

Dr. Jibiao Fan
Prof. Dr. Bin Xu
Prof. Dr. Longxing Hu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Agriculture is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • breeding
  • forage crop
  • environmental stress
  • gene function
  • QTL
  • GWAS
  • yield

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Published Papers

This special issue is now open for submission.
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