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: 20 March 2026 | Viewed by 499

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
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Agro-Grassland Science, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China
Interests: forage; gene function; molecular breeding; environmental stress; heat stress
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
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

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Keywords

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

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

16 pages, 3868 KB  
Article
Integrated Metabolomic and Transcriptomic Analysis of Antimony (Sb) Stress Response in Common Bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon [L.] Pers.)
by Qian Liu, Maryam Noor, Yuanhang Xiang, Yao Chen, Shang Gao, Fangming Wu, Xiaoqin Li, Xutong Hu, Xuebing Yan, Bing Wen and Jibiao Fan
Agriculture 2025, 15(21), 2221; https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture15212221 - 24 Oct 2025
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Abstract
Antimony (Sb) is a toxic metalloid and has become an increasingly prevalent contaminant in ecosystems. Previous studies have reported that Sb has severe toxic effects on plant growth. However, the molecular mechanisms of the response to Sb stress in plants still remain unclear. [...] Read more.
Antimony (Sb) is a toxic metalloid and has become an increasingly prevalent contaminant in ecosystems. Previous studies have reported that Sb has severe toxic effects on plant growth. However, the molecular mechanisms of the response to Sb stress in plants still remain unclear. In the present study, common bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon [L.] Pers.), ‘Yangjiang’ cultivar, was treated with 200 mg/mL of antimony potassium tartrate solution. Integrated metabolomic and transcriptomic analysis was conducted to investigate the mechanisms of the Sb stress response of bermudagrass. The results showed that, after Sb stress treatment, soluble protein content, malondialdehyde (MDA) content, and catalase (CAT) activity increased by 180.56%, 280%, and 112.61%, respectively, compared to the control. Meanwhile, transcriptomic and metabolomic analyses identified numerous differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and differentially accumulated metabolites (DAMs) that were involved in the Sb stress response of bermudagrass, and many pathways, such as the carbon metabolism, photosynthesis and alanine, aspartate, and glutamate metabolism pathways, were also identified to be related to the Sb stress response of the bermudagrass plant by KEGG and GO enrichment. Overall, the present study revealed that photosynthesis and amino acid metabolism pathways play important roles in the Sb stress response of bermudagrass. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Molecular Mechanisms and Breeding Techniques of Forage Crops)
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