Leading Editor:
Prof. Antonio Ferrante, University of Milano, Italy antonio.ferrante@unimi.it
Abiotic stresses are responsible of yield and quality losses of many horticultural crops. The negative effect of stress on the crops depends on the severity and intensity. In the cropping systems the abiotic stresses can induce losses that range from 50-70%. The most common abiotic stresses are represented by drought, salinity, high temperature, high irradiance, nutrient deficiency, flooding, cold, and heavy metals. The climate change can increase the stressful conditions in some geographical stress and some stresses can act synergistically on crop response. Understanding the molecular mechanisms behind the crop responses and adaptation strategies can lead to the identification of some key regulatory genes associated to abiotic stress tolerance. New biotechnological tools such as transcriptional studies and CRISPR-cas9 can help to identify target genes that can lead to achieve tolerance and help breeders to develop novel stress-tolerant crops. Physiological, biochemical, molecular biology and proteomic data can greatly help in understanding crop responses to abiotic stresses. Therefore, research papers and reviews related to abiotic stress tolerance or response in horticultural crops are welcome for this Special Issue.
To highlight the latest advances of molecular biology and its applications in molecular responses to abiotic stresses of horticultural crops, we invite you and/or members of your research team to submit manuscript(s) to this special issue.
The special issue will be led by Prof. Antonio Ferrante (University of Milano, Italy). He will guide the scope of the issue and provide advice on commissioned content, as well as be involved in the editorial decision making on all papers submitted.
We will especially welcome Research, Methodology and Resource, Opinion and Review submissions, including (but not limited to) the following areas:
- Molecular Physiology/Biochemistry/Cell/Genetic Biology in horticultural crops and stresses;
- Molecular changes and crop/produce quality changes under stress conditions;
- Impact of agronomic tools or treatments on molecular changes useful to crop adaptation to stress conditions;
- Use of stress for inducing specific molecular changes that lead to increase produce quality;
- Transcriptional changes, proteomic, and metabolic studies associated to crop responses and adaptation to abiotic stresses.
Articles will undergo all of the journal's standard peer review and editorial processes outlined in its submission guidelines.
The submission deadline is November 30, 2023.
Please submit directly to Molecular Horticulture EM system stating in your cover letter that you are targeting the ‘Horticultural Crop Molecular Responses to Abiotic Stresses’ collection.