Characterisation, Protection and Development of Minor Crops Adapted to Challenging New Climatic Conditions—2nd Edition
A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Crop Breeding and Genetics".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2026 | Viewed by 4
Special Issue Editors
Interests: plant ecology; abiotic stress responses; ecology of seed germination; halophytes; stress-tolerant crops
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: breeding for quality; abiotic stress breeding; genetic diversity; phenomics; introgression breeding
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: climate change; plant biotechnology; plant reproduction; abiotic stress; plant stress physiology; halophytes; drought; salinity; stress tolerance
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Current agriculture and food production worldwide is based on the commercial cultivation of a relatively low number of cultivars of a few plant species, which have been bred for improved yields under optimal growing conditions. Therefore, their high productivity also requires high inputs (chemical fertilisers, herbicides, pesticides) and, in many cases, irrigation. These cultivars are generally sensitive to abiotic stress factors, such as high temperatures, drought or salinity. Current environmental conditions, driven by climate change—or, rather, climate emergency—demand urgent action, as yields of our major crops are declining in many parts of the world.
Despite some promising results, the biotechnological improvement of the abiotic stress tolerance of major commercial crops by classical breeding, genetic transformation and/or genome editing will still require some time. However, many other “minor” crops or cultivars, which have been neglected for producing lower yields, may be better adapted to more stressful local conditions and could be cultivated on a larger scale, helping increase global crop yields under present and foreseeable climate conditions.
This Special Issue welcomes original research papers, review and mini-review articles, or opinion papers on the characterisation of minor crops, their responses to environmental stress factors, breeding to improve agronomic traits, protection, in situ and ex situ conservation, and related topics.
“Minor crops” are considered here in a broad sense: food and non-food crops cultivated on a small scale, landraces, varieties/cultivars of major crops grown locally or stored in seed banks, crops introduced in new areas but cultivated on a large scale elsewhere, or wild species candidates for cultivation as cash crops.
Prof. Dr. Monica Boscaiu
Prof. Dr. Mariola Plazas
Prof. Dr. Oscar Vicente
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. Agronomy 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
- minor crops
- abiotic stress tolerance
- seed banks
- genetic characterisation
- breeding
- germplasm resources
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