As with the green revolution in the past century, worldwide genebanks can confer phenotypic and genetic novelty useful to increase yield and crop adaptability. However, new strategies for genebank utilization must be empowered in order to meet the increasing global food demand. Therefore, this Research Topic envisions bringing major recent ‘big data’ developments that are likely to speed up the identification, conservation, and pre-breeding of better-adapted crop varieties.
In particular, crop wild relatives and landraces harbor unique variation that may prove useful for climate change adaptation. Yet, their factual utilization has been hampered by poor characterizations, incompatibilities and polygenetic variance. Hence, research addressing the following issues will be welcomed in this Research Topic:
- Unlocking phenotypic and genetic variation hidden in crop wild relatives and landraces.
- Major challenges to utilize crop wild relatives and landraces to improve complex polygenic adaptive traits.
- Modern experimental (e.g. speed breeding, de novo domestication, genome editing) and analytical (e.g. predictive breeding, genomic selection, machine learning) approaches that could speed up the utilization of wild relatives and landraces within conservation and breeding programs.
- Novel approaches to merge pre- and breeding efforts towards the increase of crop adaptability and yield.
- Strategies to match future global food demands in the face of increased abiotic and biotic stresses.
- Data compilation, ‘big data’, and database management targeting crop wild relatives and landraces.
Ultimately, by efficiently uncovering the phenotypic and genetic variants underling adaptive traits, crop wild relatives and landraces allelic resources may be transferred into novel cultivars. For innovative ‘big data’ approaches to succeed, this Research Topic advocates for a trans-disciplinary compilation of original research articles, reviews and opinion perspectives within an open-source framework targeting developing countries and orphan crops. An additional purpose of the Research Topic is to encourage contributions from minorities, women and early-career researchers.
Please note that descriptive studies and those defining gene families or descriptive collection of transcripts, proteins, or metabolites, will not be considered for review unless they are expanded and provide mechanistic and/or physiological insights into the biological system or process being studied.
Image in this Research Topic are credited to:
Panicle Bouquet - Anna McClung, USDA-DBNRRC
Rice Pinwheel - Lorie A. Bernhardt, USDA-DBNRRC
Rice Germplasm Collection - Javier Delao, USDA-DBNRRC
Common Bean Germplasm - Andrés Cortés Vera, AGROSAVIA
As with the green revolution in the past century, worldwide genebanks can confer phenotypic and genetic novelty useful to increase yield and crop adaptability. However, new strategies for genebank utilization must be empowered in order to meet the increasing global food demand. Therefore, this Research Topic envisions bringing major recent ‘big data’ developments that are likely to speed up the identification, conservation, and pre-breeding of better-adapted crop varieties.
In particular, crop wild relatives and landraces harbor unique variation that may prove useful for climate change adaptation. Yet, their factual utilization has been hampered by poor characterizations, incompatibilities and polygenetic variance. Hence, research addressing the following issues will be welcomed in this Research Topic:
- Unlocking phenotypic and genetic variation hidden in crop wild relatives and landraces.
- Major challenges to utilize crop wild relatives and landraces to improve complex polygenic adaptive traits.
- Modern experimental (e.g. speed breeding, de novo domestication, genome editing) and analytical (e.g. predictive breeding, genomic selection, machine learning) approaches that could speed up the utilization of wild relatives and landraces within conservation and breeding programs.
- Novel approaches to merge pre- and breeding efforts towards the increase of crop adaptability and yield.
- Strategies to match future global food demands in the face of increased abiotic and biotic stresses.
- Data compilation, ‘big data’, and database management targeting crop wild relatives and landraces.
Ultimately, by efficiently uncovering the phenotypic and genetic variants underling adaptive traits, crop wild relatives and landraces allelic resources may be transferred into novel cultivars. For innovative ‘big data’ approaches to succeed, this Research Topic advocates for a trans-disciplinary compilation of original research articles, reviews and opinion perspectives within an open-source framework targeting developing countries and orphan crops. An additional purpose of the Research Topic is to encourage contributions from minorities, women and early-career researchers.
Please note that descriptive studies and those defining gene families or descriptive collection of transcripts, proteins, or metabolites, will not be considered for review unless they are expanded and provide mechanistic and/or physiological insights into the biological system or process being studied.
Image in this Research Topic are credited to:
Panicle Bouquet - Anna McClung, USDA-DBNRRC
Rice Pinwheel - Lorie A. Bernhardt, USDA-DBNRRC
Rice Germplasm Collection - Javier Delao, USDA-DBNRRC
Common Bean Germplasm - Andrés Cortés Vera, AGROSAVIA