Breeding for Tolerance: Advances in Forage Grass Genetics
A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Grassland and Pasture Science".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2026
Special Issue Editors
Interests: functional genomics, transcriptomics, and metabolomics in grasses
Interests: molecular mechanisms of abiotic stress tolerance in forages
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Forage grasses are fundamental to livestock production and grassland ecosystems, providing feed resources, soil stabilization, and ecological services. Yet, their productivity and persistence are threatened by climate change, soil degradation, and increasing biotic and abiotic stresses. Traditional breeding, germplasm evaluation, and physiological studies have long contributed to identifying resilient materials, while recent breakthroughs in genetics, genomics, and molecular breeding now offer powerful tools to accelerate improvement. This Special Issue aims to highlight advances that integrate physiological understanding, germplasm characterization, and cutting-edge molecular approaches to breed forage grasses with enhanced tolerance and resilience. We invite original research, reviews, and short communications covering topics such as stress physiology, germplasm screening and evaluation, genome-wide association studies, functional genomics, multi-omics integration, gene editing, and breeding applications. By bringing together diverse approaches, this Special Issue seeks to foster sustainable forage grass improvement and support resilient pasture-based production systems under global change.
Dr. Kuiju Niu
Dr. Qiang Zhou
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
- forage grasses
- stress tolerance
- stress physiology
- germplasm evaluation
- functional genomics
- abiotic stress
- biotic stress
- omics technologies
- grassland improvement
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