Sustainable Crop Production Under Abiotic Stresses: Physiological Response and Cultivation Regulation for Yield Optimization

A special issue of Plants (ISSN 2223-7747). This special issue belongs to the section "Crop Physiology and Crop Production".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 February 2026 | Viewed by 947

Special Issue Editor


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Joint International Research Laboratory of Agriculture and Agri-Product Safety, The Ministry of Education of China, Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory of Crop Genetics and Physiology, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225009, China
Interests: plant physiology; crop production; abiotic stress; nutrient absorption and utilization

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues, 

Climate change and human activity are progressively increasing the frequency of abiotic stresses, such as drought, heat, cold, salinity, flooding, nutrient deficiencies, heavy metal stress, and ultraviolet radiation, presenting a major constraint for plant growth, physiological metabolism, and crop production. The ever-increasing population and decreasing fertile soil resources generate a constant threat to food security. Therefore, it is essential to exploit effective strategies to enhance plant growth and improve crop yield under stress environments to further sustainable agricultural development. Some cultivation regulations strategies can alleviate abiotic stress in crop production and improve crop yields, such, exogenous hormone application, bioactive substances, optimum nutrient and water management. A deeper understanding of  how crop responses and cultivation regulation strategies enhance plant tolerant to abiotic stresses and the underlying stress tolerance mechanisms is crucial and will absolutely accelerate the breeding of stress-tolerant crops and correspondingly improve cultivation management.

This Special Issue explores sustainable crop production under abiotic stresses. Physiological responses and cultivation regulation for yield optimization will involve studies on the cultivation regulation strategies to enhance plant tolerance to abiotic stress (not limited to the stress factors of drought, salinity, heat, cold, flooding, nutrient deficiencies, heavy metal stress, and ultraviolet radiation) and plant growth, crop yield and quality, and the understanding of tolerance mechanisms at the morphological, physiological, biochemical, and molecule levels. This Special Issue welcomes original research manuscripts, short communications, and reviews. Manuscripts submitted to Plants must not have been previously published and cannot be under consideration for publication in another journal.

Dr. Guanglong Zhu
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 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. Plants is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 2700 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

  • abiotic stress
  • plant growth
  • crop yield
  • grain quality
  • physiological mechanism
  • stress tolerance
  • cultivation regulation

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

  • Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
  • Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
  • Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
  • External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
  • Reprint: MDPI Books provides the opportunity to republish successful Special Issues in book format, both online and in print.

Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (1 paper)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Review

17 pages, 1205 KB  
Review
Current Status of Studying on Physiological Mechanisms of Rice Response to Flooding Stress and Flooding-Resistant Cultivation Regulation
by Weicheng Bu, Irshad Ahmad, Han Fei, Muhi Eldeen Hussien Ibrahim, Yunji Xu, Tianyao Meng, Qingsong Zuo, Tianjie Lei, Guisheng Zhou and Guanglong Zhu
Plants 2025, 14(18), 2863; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants14182863 - 14 Sep 2025
Viewed by 797
Abstract
Due to climate change, flooding stress has occurred more frequently and intensively than ever before, which has become one of the major abiotic stresses affecting rice production. In tropical regions around the world, southeastern coastal countries, and southern rice production areas of China, [...] Read more.
Due to climate change, flooding stress has occurred more frequently and intensively than ever before, which has become one of the major abiotic stresses affecting rice production. In tropical regions around the world, southeastern coastal countries, and southern rice production areas of China, frequent flooding disaster usually takes place during the rainy season and heavy summer rainfall, which leads to great yield losses in rice production. Currently, only a few rice genotypes are flooding-tolerant, and the relevant flooding-resistant cultivation and regulation practices are still lacking. Therefore, this review highlighted the latest studies on the physiological mechanisms of rice response to flooding stress and flooding-resistant cultivation, particularly summarizing the effect of flooding stress on rice root system architecture, plant growth, reactive oxygen metabolism, energy metabolism, radiation use efficiency, endogenous hormone metabolism, nitrogen utilization efficiency, and yield formation. In addition, the breeding strategies and cultivation regulation approaches for alleviating the flooding stress of rice were analyzed. Finally, future research directions are outlined. This review comprehensively summarizes the rice growth performance and physiological traits response to flooding stress, and sums up some useful regulation strategies, which might assist in further interpreting the mechanisms of plants’ response to flooding stress and developing stress-resistant cultivation practices for rice production. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop