Sustainable Practices to Improve Bioactive Compounds in Horticultural Crops
A special issue of Horticulturae (ISSN 2311-7524). This special issue belongs to the section "Protected Culture".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 26 December 2025 | Viewed by 1222
Special Issue Editors
Interests: plant in vitro culture; plant genetic transformation; biotic and abiotic stress response; allelopathy; natural products; bioherbicide
Interests: plant physiology and biotechnology; plant bioactive compounds; abiotic stress; antioxidant defense mechanisms in plants; allelopathy; ecologically sustainable herbicides
Interests: plant physiology; bioactive compounds; stress response; antioxidative defense; biotechnology; bioherbicide
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Horticultural plants play a crucial role in environmental sustainability, economic development, and human health and well-being. They produce a variety of secondary metabolites with significant biological properties, including antioxidant, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, and anti-cancer effects. This makes them widely utilized in the pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and food industries, while also offering promising potential for weed and pest control. The demand for antioxidants, a key category of bioactive compounds, continues to grow due to their ability to protect cells from the oxidative stress caused by reactive oxygen species (ROS). Indeed, to combat ROS and maintain cellular health, plants have developed complex antioxidant networks that include both enzymatic (e.g., superoxide dismutase, peroxidase, catalase) and non-enzymatic (e.g., ascorbic acid, flavonoids, phenolics, carotenoids, tocopherol) mechanisms. As such, research into plant-based antioxidants is a topic of great interest in medicine, nutrition, and cosmetics. To further advance our understanding of bioactive compounds and antioxidants, sensitive analytical techniques such as HPLC and LC-MS/MS are essential. Additionally, strategies to enhance the production of bioactive compounds through biotic and abiotic elicitors, such as temperature, drought, salinity, light exposure, and growth regulators, along with genetic manipulations and in vitro methods (e.g., tissue culture), show great promise. Furthermore, "omics" technologies—transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics—could deepen our understanding of bioactive compound production.
We invite the submission of original research papers and reviews that contribute to the understanding and improvement of horticultural crops’ bioactive compound production and their applications.
Dr. Slavica Ninković
Dr. Mariana Stanišić
Dr. Slavica Dmitrović
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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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.
Keywords
- bioactive compounds
- antioxidants
- elicitors
- controlled biotic and abiotic stress
- sustainable practices
- green agriculture
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