Research Progress on Germplasm Evaluation, Breeding Techniques and New Variety Selection of Fruit Trees

Dear Colleagues,

Fruit trees are mainly divided into four categories: pome fruits, stone fruits, berries and nuts. Pome fruits, typically apples and pears, are false fruits with thick, juicy flesh and smooth, storable peels, containing many small seeds in the center. Stone fruits such as peaches, plums, apricots and cherries are true fruits. They have juicy sweet and sour flesh with a hard wooden stone in the center. Berries including grapes, strawberries and blueberries feature soft, watery flesh and thin peels without hard stones. They taste sweet and fresh but are delicate and hard to store and transport. Nuts represented by walnuts, chestnuts and hazelnuts have hard wooden shells and little flesh. Their kernels are rich in oil and protein, easy to preserve and usually consumed as dried fruits. Different fruit trees have unique fruiting traits, bringing diverse edible and economic values. In recent years, they have gained increasing attention due to their significant economic value in both fresh consumption and processing.

For a long time, the complex interspecific hybridization and polyploidy within fruit trees have made traditional breeding highly dependent on empirical approaches, leading to bottlenecks such as unclear genetic relationships and difficulties in exploiting desirable traits (e.g., trunk shape, stress resistance, fruit components and nutrients, yield and unique flavors). In recent years, multi-omics technologies, along with gene and molecular marker development techniques, have been increasingly applied to germplasm evaluation, identification and core germplasm screening. This has enabled targeted molecular breeding for resistance and quality traits, leading to the continuous selection and promotion of improved varieties and a significant increase in breeding efficiency. Nevertheless, challenges such as the unstable genetic transformation of germplasm and interspecific cross-incompatibility in the breeding and application of fruit trees have remained.

This Special Issue aims to present and disseminate the most recent advances related to germplasm evaluation, breeding techniques and selective breeding in fruit trees. We consider contributions addressing the evaluation and breeding of germplasm resources or hybrid populations in diverse fruit trees. Studies encompassing the (a) application of high-efficiency cultivation techniques, (b) evaluation and exploration of germplasm characteristics, (c) omics-based dissection of important economic traits, (d) efficient development and utilization of molecular markers and (e) genetic analysis and locus mapping of key traits related to seed germination, growth and development, stress resistance and fruit characteristics are particularly encouraged.
Topics of interest for publication include, but are not limited to, the following:

• [Germplasm evaluation]
• [Physiological mechanism]
• [New variety selection]
• [Genetic inheritance]
• [Polyploidy breeding]
• [Yield factor and fruit nutrients]
• [Genomics]
• [Molecular marker]

Dr. Chunhong Zhang
Dr. Haiyan Yang
Guest Editors

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• Rubus plants
• germplasm evaluation
• genetic trend
• variety breeding and introduction
• functional gene
• molecular marker