Genetic Control of Agronomic Traits in Plants

Dear Colleagues,

One of the most important challenges facing current and future generations is how climate change and continuous population growth adversely affect food security. To address this, the food system needs a complete transformation where more is produced in non-optimal and space-limited areas, while reducing negative environmental impact.

In the last century, the use of high-yielding F1-hybrid varieties, mechanization, and irrigation has insured yield improvement for major crops. In the post-genomic era, one would expect that the discovery and the optimization of the gene networks controlling key agronomic traits could contribute to another level of yield improvement. A combination of various technical and genomic methods currently available is necessary in order to seriously develop sustainable agriculture. Developing indoor production systems that do not encroach on habitable lands, editing leader alleles enhancing yield and resilience, will likely contribute to the required sustainability. An ideal future crop should include characteristics such as a rapid life cycle to improve the productivity per year, a short stature to fit in space-limited growing areas, an efficient nutrition system to lower chemical inputs, and an optimized flowering and fruit set to ensure high fruit yield.

In this Special Issue on “Genetic Control of Agronomic Traits in Plants”, we would like to highlight research projects developing (i) phenotyping tools to identify genetic loci controlling key agronomic traits; (ii) genetic and omics characterization of key agronomic traits; and (iii) identification of leader alleles improving crop performance.

Prof. Dr. Abdelhafid Bendahmane
Guest Editor

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. Genes 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.