Breeding for Organic Nutrition of Vegetable Crops

Dear colleagues，

The goals for vegetable crop breeding in both organic production systems (OPS) and conventional production systems (CPS) include high productivity, host-plant resistance or tolerance to biotic and abiotic factors, and high resource-use efficiency. However, the vegetable lines bred for CPS will not always perform well in OPS.  Despite the highly regulated nature of organic production practices, specific traits are required to meet the need for local adaptation in OPS since resource recycling and the quality of the inputs used vary from one region to another. A critical component of vegetable crop yield and quality involves plant nutrient acquisition and utilization efficiency. Regardless of the source, plant nutrients are chemical elements that are essential for plant growth and development. Essential plant nutrients for which no other elements can fully substitute are required by the plant to complete its lifecycle. The ability of crop plants to acquire, accumulate, transport and metabolize nutrient elements is often limited by extrinsic (environmental, e.g., soil physical and chemical properties, temperature, and light intensity) and intrinsic (plant developmental, biochemical, and physiological) factors. Since the latter are subject to genetic control, the use of plant-breeding strategies and specific traits to improve the complex trait of plant nutrient-utilization efficiency is required for the breeding of novel vegetable cultivars for OPS.  Because the utilization of commercial inorganic fertilizer is not allowed in OPS, the genetic adaptation of varieties to efficiently utilizing slow-nutrient-releasing organic fertilizer sources (composted plant and animal residue, and mined substances of low solubility) should be a major plant-breeding objective. Beneficial trait-development efforts for OPS cultivars need to target crop adaptation to edaphic factors (low nutrient levels, pH, EC, and salinity); root vigor and depth; an appropriate root architecture that enhances nutrient and water-use efficiency as found in grain legumes; N-fixation; and mycorrhizal association genes, as recently identified in tomatoes.

The purpose of this Special Issue is to publish good-quality research articles addressing recent developments in vegetable crop breeding for efficient organic nutrition and high productivity. This Special Issue aims to provide contributions from a variety of current and relevant topics in the horticultural sciences; vegetable crop breeding; vegetable crop production and management; plant physiology, nutrition, and biochemistry; soil chemistry and microbiology; organic crop production; and compost and waste management.

Dr. Jonathan N. Egilla
Guest Editor

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• composted organic matter
• nutrient-efficient cultivars
• nutrient uptake
• nutrient-use efficiency
• organic vegetable production
• plant nutrition
• root adaptation
• root phenotype
• root system
• vegetable breeding