Functional Metabolism in Crops/Agronomy

Dear Colleagues,

Since the initial years of Agriculture in the Neolithic, man has been always aware of the crop benefits for health. Thus, the search for new and more nutritive agro produce has been the target for human communities and, accordingly, breeding strategies have been developed in search of novel species and varieties destined to human consume. From the early contributions in Old Persian, Egyptian and Greek cultures till the present days, the agricultural science has evolved enormously. From the simple description of natural compounds contained in our crops, as it has been made till recent years, research nowadays seeks for thus far unreported functional molecules which contribute to maintaining and improving our health status, but also to understand how plants cope against unfavorable conditions promoted by different agents such as salinity, drought, flooding, cold, heavy metals, pathogens, and others.

The development of cutting edge throughput and fine technologies are greatly helping the objectives of the current agricultural science. Approaches such as genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, ionomics, and others initiatives which combine the accurate individualization of molecules (genes, proteins, metabolites) with their identification and quantification are providing a bulk of data with agricultural, industrial and commercial potentialities.

This Special Issue will be focused on Functional Metabolism in Crops/Agronomy and it is expected to be an Agora where plant biologists with expertise in the response of agricultural species to biotic and abiotic stresses, the new growing strategies to increase the nutritional value of plant products, the ripening and post-harvest of fruits, the antioxidative and functional compounds present in crops, and the new technologies applied to the improvement of agriculture, will bring their knowledge to be shared with the scientific community, farmers and companies.

Prof. José Palma
Guest Editor

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