Harnessing Plant Microbiome to Improve the Resilience of Crop Species Under Various Biotic and Abiotic Stress Conditions
A special issue of Plants (ISSN 2223-7747). This special issue belongs to the section "Plant Protection and Biotic Interactions".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 October 2025 | Viewed by 933
Special Issue Editors
Interests: plant pathology; biotic and abiotic stress tolerance; metagenomics; sustainable agriculture
Interests: plant microbiome; plant–pathogen interaction; biocontrol
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The demand for agricultural products is increasing due to the growing human population. However, in recent years, the current agricultural cropping system is continuously being challenged by its frequent exposure to extreme weather conditions, leading to unprecedented stress conditions for crops. It is estimated that approximately 30% and 50% of the yield of global agricultural production is compromised by biotic and abiotic stress conditions, respectively. Modern agriculture is heavily reliant on the application of diverse agrochemicals throughout the whole growing season to maintain or enhance its yield. However, this heavy use of agrochemicals in agriculture has led to an increase in awareness regarding the potential hazardous effect that agrochemicals have on the environment and human health. The use of beneficial microbes against biotic and abiotic stress is an eco-friendly strategy that can reduce the application of agrochemicals. With the development of high-throughput sequencing technologies, 16s rRNA genes and shotgun metagenomic sequencing provide a powerful tool for deciphering plant microbiomes, which are useful for the identification, isolation and application of beneficial microbes for sustainable agriculture.
This Special Issue aims to explore the latest findings and insights regarding the plant-associated microbiome and its relationship with crop resilience under various stress conditions. The scope of this Special Issue therefore includes, but is not limited to, the following topics:
- The interaction between the microbiome and plant pathogens;
- Alterations in the community and structure of the plant-associated microbiome in response to environmental or ecological factors;
- Microbiome engineering for improving crop resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses;
- Plant microbiome assemblage.
Dr. Jong Won Park
Dr. Chuanyu Yang
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. 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
- plant-associated microbiome
- climate change
- biotic and abiotic stress
- crop protection
- sustainable agriculture
- metabolomics
- microbiome engineering
- beneficial microbe
- rhizosphere
- secondary metabolites
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