Horticultural Crops against Abiotic Stresses: Adaptation Skills and Agronomic Strategies

A special issue of Horticulturae (ISSN 2311-7524). This special issue belongs to the section "Biotic and Abiotic Stress".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 August 2025 | Viewed by 771

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Agriculture, Food, Environment and Forestry Sciences and Technologies (DAGRI-UniFi), Florence University, 50100 Florence, Italy
Interests: viticulture; plant physiology and biochemistry; biostimulants; zeolite; climate change; sustainability; grape quality
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Agriculture, Food, Environment and Forestry (DAGRI), University of Florence, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italy
Interests: viticulture; plant physiology and biochemistry; biostimulants; zeolite; climate change; sustainability; grape quality
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The open access journal Horticulturae is pleased to announce that we have launched a new Special Issue, titled “Horticultural crops against abiotic stresses: adaptation skills and agronomic strategies”. Given your expertise in this field, we would like to invite you to contribute an article to this Special Issue.

The quality and quantity of horticultural crop production usually depend on the genotype, environmental conditions, and water and soil management. Abiotic stresses, such as disadvantageous environmental conditions, can make crop performance decline. Moreover, abiotic stresses, such as drought, cold, heat waves, salinity, nutrient deficiency, and ultraviolet radiation, influence the physiological and biochemical processes in crops.

A plant’s skill in facing these issues depends on its adaptation aptitude. Different approaches, including agronomical, physiological, and molecular methods, have been applied to produce plants that grow well under environmentally unfavorable conditions. Some important strategies of plant crop enhancements against stresses include several tools such as classical breeding programs, tissue culture, irrigation, biofertilizers using mycorrhizae and bacteria, biostimulants, genetic engineering, and graftings.

This Special Issue aims to collect research studies to understand the key adaptation strategies of plants that can be exploited to improve crop stress tolerance, as well as the application of appropriate agronomic strategies to counteract the negative effects of abiotic stresses.

We hope to receive your contributions so that we can share them with researchers, students, and technicians who believe in improving agriculture. We hope that you will consider this invitation, and we look forward to working with you in the future.

Dr. Eleonora Cataldo
Dr. Giovan Battista Mattii
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

  • horticulture
  • genetic engineering
  • abiotic stress
  • water and soil management
  • drought stress

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

14 pages, 1482 KiB  
Article
The Physiological Mechanism of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal in Regulating the Growth of Trifoliate Orange (Poncirus trifoliata L. Raf.) Under Low-Temperature Stress
by Changlin Li, Xian Pei, Qiaofeng Yang, Fuyuan Su, Chuanwu Yao, Hua Zhang, Zaihu Pang, Zhonghua Yao, Dejian Zhang and Yan Wang
Horticulturae 2025, 11(7), 850; https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae11070850 - 18 Jul 2025
Viewed by 257
Abstract
In recent years, low temperature has seriously threatened the citrus industry. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) can enhance the absorption of nutrients and water and tolerance to abiotic stresses. In this study, pot experiments were conducted to study the effects of low-temperature stress on [...] Read more.
In recent years, low temperature has seriously threatened the citrus industry. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) can enhance the absorption of nutrients and water and tolerance to abiotic stresses. In this study, pot experiments were conducted to study the effects of low-temperature stress on citrus (trifoliate orange, Poncirus trifoliata L. Raf.) with AMF (Diversispora epigaea D.e). The results showed that AMF inoculation significantly increased plant growth, chlorophyll fluorescence, and photosynthetic parameters. Compared with 25 °C, −5 °C significantly increased the relative conductance rate and the contents of malondialdehyde, hydrogen peroxide, soluble sugar soluble protein, and proline, and also enhanced the activities of catalase and superoxide dismutase, but dramatically reduced photosynthetic parameters. Compared with the non-AMF group, AMF significantly increased the maximum light quantum efficiency and steady-state light quantum efficiency at 25 °C (by 16.67% and 61.54%), and increased the same parameters by 71.43% and 140% at −5 °C. AMF also significantly increased the leaf net photosynthetic rate and transpiration rate at 25 °C (by 54.76% and 29.23%), and increased the same parameters by 72.97% and 26.67% at −5 °C. Compared with the non-AMF treatment, the AMF treatment significantly reduced malondialdehyde and hydrogen peroxide content at 25 °C (by 46.55% and 41.29%), and reduced them by 28.21% and 29.29% at −5 °C. In addition, AMF significantly increased the contents of soluble sugar, soluble protein, and proline at 25 °C (by 15.22%, 34.38%, and 11.38%), but these increased by only 9.64%, 0.47%, and 6.09% at −5 °C. Furthermore, AMF increased the activities of superoxide dismutase and catalase at 25 °C (by 13.33% and 13.72%), but these increased by only 5.51% and 13.46% at −5 °C. In conclusion, AMF can promote the growth of the aboveground and underground parts of trifoliate orange seedlings and enhance their resistance to low temperature via photosynthesis, osmoregulatory substances, and their antioxidant system. Full article
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