Plant Nutrition Biofortification

Dear Colleagues,

The journal Plants will be publishing a Topical Collection on "Plant Nutrition Biofortification" that will focus on studies regarding the enrichment of micronutrients in staple crops, developed worldwide. Food fortification is the intentional enrichment of a particular food micronutrient. A historical example is the addition of iodine to salt, which began in the 1920s in order to decrease the prevalence of goiter in the U.S. population. Additionally, the U.S. mandatory fortification of all enriched grain products with folic acid has prevented thousands of neural tube defect incidences per year.

Currently, several staple crops could be artificially enriched in iron, zinc, calcium and selenium, for example, to mitigate human micronutrient deficiencies responsible for a wide range of non-specific physiological impairments, leading to reduced resistance to infections, metabolic disorders, and delayed or impaired physical and psychomotor development.

Worldwide, the three most common deficiencies are of iron, vitamin A, and iodine. Together, these affect at least one-third of the world’s population, the majority of whom are in developing countries. Since the pioneering idea of Dr. Howarth Bouis, a co-laureate of the World Food Prize in 2016 to tackle “hidden hunger” through fortification, nearly 300 varieties of 12 crops (e.g., rice, wheat, maize, bananas, potatoes) are currently being grown in 60 countries, reaching an estimated 10 million farming households.

Prof. Dr. Fernando Henrique Reboredo
Collection 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. 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 collection website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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.