Achievements and Perspectives on Heavy Metal Stress and Crop Plant Responses
A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Soil and Plant Nutrition".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2026 | Viewed by 2014
Special Issue Editors
Interests: plant breeding; quantitative genetics; genotype × environment interactions; heavy metals stress; drought and salts stress; biostatistics; plants bioactive compounds
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: plant physiology; polluted soils; heavy metals and metalloids; plant metabolism; antioxidant capacity; drought and salts stress in plants; photosynthesis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: agricultural microbiology; plant microbiome; soil microflora; abiotic stress; rhizospheric mechanisms
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Environmental pollution with heavy metals is a recognized phenomenon. Over time, plants have developed mechanisms to counteract the negative effects of heavy metal pollution, largely due to the activity of the rhizosphere microbiome, or by isolating and concentrating them in various organs and tissues. In general, crop plant species do not present specific adaptation mechanisms and are therefore highly exposed to heavy metal pollution, with tendencies for their accumulation in various organs and direct negative effects on the level and quality of yield. From this point of view, it is essential to better understand both the stress induced by the presence of heavy metals on plants and their microbiome, but also the physiological, biochemical, and molecular reactions of anti-metal protection and the impact on harvest. This Special Issue aims to obtain and provide valuable information regarding the following:
- The mode of action of heavy metal pollution in plants.
- Technological measures to prevent and mitigate heavy metal pollution of the agricultural environment.
- Counteracting the effects of stress by plants through physiological, biochemical, and molecular mechanisms.
- Quantitative and qualitative changes in the plant microbiome under conditions of heavy metal pollution.
Manuscripts that provide valuable scientific contributions on the perception and metabolic response of plants to the unilateral action of heavy metals and the interactions between them, highlighting the impact on crops, will be especially appreciated.
We invite you to join us to contribute to a better understanding of the physiological, biochemical, and molecular mechanisms involved in the response of plants to heavy metal pollution and to the identification of innovative technological remediation measures.
Prof. Dr. Ciulca Sorin
Prof. Dr. Șumălan Radu-Liviu
Dr. Renata Maria Sumalan
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
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 semimonthly 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
- heavy metal (HM) pollution
- HM toxicity in plants
- plant responses to HM stress
- plant’s adaptation strategies to HM stress
- phytoremediation
- metallophytes
- HM stress mitigation
- genetic of plant’s tolerance to HM stress
- Rhizospheric microbiome adaptation and plant tolerance
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