Advances in Genetics, Breeding and Quality Traits in Forage and Clover Crops
A special issue of Agriculture (ISSN 2077-0472). This special issue belongs to the section "Genotype Evaluation and Breeding".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 April 2022) | Viewed by 5369
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Forage crops play a key role in the transition towards more sustainable agriculture. Maximizing production and forage quality, while at the same time reducing the need for external inputs such as fertilization and crop protection, are key elements to provide high-quality animal products against a low environmental footprint. In addition, forage crops provide various ecosystem services, such as increasing biodiversity and preventing erosion. Forage legumes such as clovers support various kinds of wild pollinators through flowering, and improve soil fertility through the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen, while reducing the need for synthetic nitrogen fertilizers.
Recent advances in breeding technologies, such as the implementation of marker-assisted selection, marker-assisted parentage analysis, genomic selection approaches, and improved phenotyping methods, have created new possibilities in forage crop breeding. Forage yield, disease resistance, persistence, and seed yield are important breeding traits to which a great deal of interest is paid. Recently, breeders have been focusing on improving quality traits such as sugar content, digestibility, and protein content in forage grasses and clovers. In grass-clover mixtures, an adequate compatibility of each component assures a good productivity and persistence.
For this Special Issue on ‘Advances in Genetics, Breeding and Quality Traits in Forage and Clover Crops’, we are ready to accept papers that discuss breeding approaches for major traits in forages or clovers, genetic studies on breeding traits, papers that apply molecular techniques such as genomic selection or marker-assisted techniques, and papers that study forage quality traits in forages or clovers. Original research papers as well as critical reviews are appreciated.
Dr. Tim Vleugels
Guest Editor
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 monthly 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 approaches/technologies
- genomic selection
- marker-assisted breeding
- forage quality
- seed yield
- phenotyping
- grass-clover mixtures
