Research Progress on the Application of Biotechnology in Fruit Crop Breeding

Dear Colleagues,

Emergencies of climate changes and of new plant pests and diseases are requiring the development of new more resilient cultivars, maintaining high yield and quality. Standard breeding programs in perennial fruit crops are time consuming and frequently limited by a lack of genetic resources. Integrative biotechnology approaches are mandatory for inducing new genetic variability in elite cultivars to increase their resilience and quality. 

In vitro morphogenesis (somatic embryogenesis, organogenesis) remains a key tool to apply to biotechnological approaches, starting from in vitro mutagenesis to the more recent new breeding techniques (NBTs) (Cisgenesis/Intragenesis, Genome editing, RNAi). 

This Special Issue of Plants aims to address the problems inherent in the development of efficient morphogenesis protocols and their use for the application of biotechnological techniques (Cisgenesis/Intragenesis, Genome editing, RNAi) in fruit plants. Furthermore, we are also seeking papers that investigate the opportunities that these technologies can offer in enhancing their productive and qualitative traits and solving the increasing sanitary emergencies that are affecting these crops.

Prof. Dr. Bruno Mezzetti
Dr. Silvia Sabbadini
Guest Editors

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