Phenotyping Technologies for Resistance Screening, Crop Breeding and Precision Agriculture

Dear Colleagues,

Climate change poses a great threat to sustainable food production worldwide, but the rapid growth of human demand for foods requires that plant yields have to continue to increase each year. The optimization of soil management, early diagnosis of crop diseases, and breeding of resistant cultivars are the keys to increasing global food production. Phenotyping technologies, from proximal to remote sensing, allow for rapid monitoring of orchards or crops at different scales, including single leaf, individual plant, and field, thereby informing the genetics of plant traits such as growth, development, resistance, architecture, physiology, and nutrients.

This Special Issue is looking for studies covering different phenotyping technologies such as RGB imaging, fluorescence imaging, multi/hyperspectral imaging, and related platforms to provide important information about how environmental stress, genetics, and precision management guide the selection of productive plants.

Topics may cover anything on the automatic identification and assessment of plant traits, including stress tolerance (e.g., biotic and abiotic stresses), chemical aspects (e.g., nutrients, secondary metabolites), and structural and functional aspects such as leaf characteristics, plant height, photosynthetic efficiency, root morphology, fruit traits, biomass, and yield, from individual plant organs to full fields. Hence, different sensing techniques and multiple scales of phenotyping platforms (e.g., ground vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles, and satellites) or studies focused on resistance screening, crop breeding, precision agriculture and other related issues are welcome. Articles may address, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• Remote sensing applications for precision agriculture;
• Assessment of plant growth status;
• Crop nutrient management;
• Nitrogen management;
• Plant phenotypes;
• Plant instance detection;
• Resistance of plants to biotic and abiotic stresses;
• Smart sensing, monitoring, and control
• Smart breeding;
• Smart farming.

Dr. Wen-Hao Su
Dr. Yuxin Miao
Dr. Zhou Zhang
Guest Editors

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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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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.