Quality Control and Enhancement of Horticultural Crops in the Post-Genomic Era

Dear Colleagues,

Horticultural plants, including fruit, vegetable and ornamental crops, contain many health-promoting substances and play a vital role in sustaining human life. Among them, fruit and vegetable crops are main sources of nutrition, and some of them are staple foods for human health. With the worsening global environment, the fast growth of the global population and the improvement in people's living standards, the market demand for high-quantity and high-quality fruit is expanding dramatically. The conventional breeding practices for horticultural plant improvement are far from meeting the demands of the times, especially with the declining genetic base and the crossing of barriers in wild and cultivated species. In the post-genomic era，improving the quality of horticultural crops can be achieved through various methods, such as genome-wide association studies (GWAS)，multi-omics integrated analysis, functional genomics, and gene-editing technologies. It is worth noting that phenotypic identification is an indispensable foundation for gene function research in the post-genomic era. Through phenotypic identification, gene functions can be accurately determined and validated, enabling genomic information to be effectively translated into practical biological and agricultural applications.

This Special Issue on “Quality Control and Enhancement of Horticultural Crops in the Post-Genomic Era” welcomes the submission of review and research papers or short communications on the following topics: crop traits, quality，metabolism, biotic stress, and abiotic stress. The identification of traits, gene mapping, multi-omics and bioinformatics analyses on both genes or transcript factors, and function verification in horticultural crops are sought after. The aim of this Special Issue is to provide new key genes and valuable reference genes for revealing molecular regulation mechanisms of horticultural crop quality through the advanced technologies of molecular genetics.

Prof. Dr. Huasen Wang
Dr. Yanting Zhao
Dr. Na Liu
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. Horticulturae 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 2200 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.

• horticultural plants
• genome-wide identification
• expression analysis
• genetic improvement