From Allelic Diversity to G × E × M Breeding Synergies in Cereals

Dear colleagues,

Agriculture faces well known and daunting challenges in coming decades: growing human population, loss of agricultural lands, diminishing resource availability, and impacts of climate change. Concurrently, there is growing recognition of the urgency to modify or adapt current cropping systems to ensure long-term sustainability. Food and nutrition security for all must be achieved within safe planetary boundaries. Cereal breeders thus face the complex challenge of increasing productivity, in ever-harsher environments, while reducing the environmental footprint of production.

While genotype by environment interactions (G x E) are a well-studied field, relatively few studies in cereals investigate the impact of crop management (M), including agronomy and cropping systems, on G x E. We argue that largely unexplored breeding opportunities to influence G x E x M lay ahead, and that these complement and by no means replace the current core-set of breeding targets in the public and private sectors.

We are looking for innovative research studies in major crops (e.g. wheat, rice and maize) that explore G x E x M synergies. This issue will collect insights and identify challenges and opportunities to breed cultivars with traits that create or exploit interactions with management to optimize sustainability of increased production. Relevant studies will integrate both genetics/breeding and management/agronomy components and will contribute to describing the novel features of varieties for sustainable cropping systems of the future.

Dr. Roi Ben-David
Dr. Kevin Pixley
Guest Editors

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• breeding
• crop improvement
• management
• G × E × M
• yield gap
• rice
• wheat
• maize
• adaptation
• cropping system