Cereal Crops and Climate Resilience: Harnessing Genetic Variants for Sustainable Food Security
A special issue of Agriculture (ISSN 2077-0472). This special issue belongs to the section "Crop Genetics, Genomics and Breeding".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2026 | Viewed by 41
Special Issue Editors
Interests: rice; quantitative trait loci (QTL); gene cloning; molecular breeding; gene editing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: plant genomics; plant molecular genetics; comparative genomics; pangenomics; plant nutrition; nitrogen nutrition
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Cereal crops are the cornerstone of global food security, providing the majority of caloric intake for the world's population; therefore, maintaining these crops’ high productivity is critical, yet climate change has increased the frequency of extreme weather events—such as heatwaves—posing significant challenges to yield stability. Developing climate-resistant cereal crops through the utilization of stress-tolerant genes or genetic variants from local germplasms represents a promising solution.
Quantitative traits governing stress resistance complicate traditional QTL mapping, but genome-wide association studies (GWASs) offer higher efficiency in identifying candidate genes within linkage disequilibrium (LD) blocks. Advances in gene editing technologies further accelerate the functional validation of these candidates. Additionally, transcriptomic analysis has proven effective in rapidly pinpointing stress-responsive genes, while haplotype analysis helps assess their contribution to natural variation, enabling the swift identification of beneficial alleles.
Stable yield under environmental fluctuations is a key indicator of crop adaptability. While stress conditions often impose trade-offs between yield and resilience, certain genetic variants—such as gs3 in rice—demonstrate that it is possible to enhance both traits simultaneously, offering ideal targets for breeding climate-resistant crops.
This Special Issue seeks to showcase research on the discovery and application of genetic variants that improve climate resilience in cereals, including rice, wheat, maize, and other staples. We welcome studies on QTL mapping, GWAS, transcriptome-based gene discovery, haplotype analysis, and gene editing for variant characterization and functional validation. Contributions on breeding strategies leveraging these variants are also encouraged, as are submissions of research articles, reviews, and commentaries.
Prof. Dr. Lin Zhang
Dr. Guobin Zhang
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- climate-resistant crops
- genetic variants
- QTL mapping
- GWAS (genome-wide association study)
- yield stability
- gene editing
- haplotype analysis
- stress tolerance
- cereal breeding
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