Transfer Plant Genes Conferring Resistance or Tolerance to Stresses from Wild Relatives of Crop Species

Dear Colleagues,

Climate change is affecting the planet’s environment through fluctuations in temperature, rainfall patterns, wind, and radiation. These environmental conditions can affect all living organisms, causing abiotic stresses (heat, cold, drought, salinity, waterlogging, UV, and heavy metals, etc.) and biotic stresses (diseases and insects) on crops. Cultivated crops are usually limited in genetic diversity to deal with stresses. Fortunately, the wild relatives of crops are rich reservoirs of genes that confer resistance to biotic stresses or tolerance to abiotic stresses. Successful utilization of alien genes to improve crops had been achieved in the past. However, new challenges always arise that require continuous effort by scientists to search for, identify, and transfer useful genes from secondary and tertiary gene pools to cultivated species. For this reason, new research reports and review articles on this subject are expected to appear in the literature. Therefore, this Special Issue has been opened to accept manuscripts reporting progress in the utilization of alien genes for improving resilience in cultivated crops.

Dr. Richard R.-C. Wang
Guest Editor

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• wild relatives of crops
• chromosome engineering
• gene transfer
• translocation line
• biotic stress
• abiotic stress
• gene mapping
• molecular marker
• pre-breeding