Horticultural genetic resources

Global climate change is causing challenges for horticultural crop productivity with the constant rise in global temperatures and reduced amount of precipitation. The proper utilization of genetic resources can help develop resilient horticultural varieties to adopt to changing environmental conditions. The specifications entail a necessary agricultural adaptation to climate change.

It is crucial to develop strategies for effective conservation and judicious use of the genetic resources of horticultural crops to improve the nutritional security and food safety for human health. A large variation in species diversity contributes to the conservation of valuable resources within each species of fruits, vegetables, medicinal, aromatic, and ornamental plants. The importance of horticultural biodiversity is widely documented, emphasizing alleviating the adverse effects of climate changes on the biodiversity. The introgression of local germplasms and their conservation helps obtain new varieties with a more comprehensive genetic background to enable suitable production under different conditions and elicit appropriate responses to various types of stress. Therefore, identifying and evaluating genetic resources would be a vital prerequisite for horticultural crop production.

While these conventional approaches can be accomplished by the direct utilization of genetic resources in breeding programs, recent advancements in biotechnology have progressively used various tools for selecting potential parents from germplasm collections. Some of these tools are embedded in specialized techniques and biotechnological assets, such as next-generation sequencing (NGS), high-throughput genotyping platforms (SNP genotyping array and genotyping by sequencing), and genomics-based approaches such as genome-wide association studies (GWAS), marker-assisted selection (MAS), and genomic selection (GS). These methods also include relevant Omics approaches such as transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics in generating new cultivars with higher adaptabilities to environmental conditions.

Given the context of this research topic, we aim to cover a wide range of studies on germplasm evaluation and conservation, domestication of horticultural crops, population genomics, climatic change and adaptive evolution. We welcome original research papers, mini-reviews, reviews, and short communications on topics that include but are not limited to:

• Utilization of landraces and wild relatives of plants to establish adaptation to climate change
• Application of genetic resources to develop desirable cultivars or varieties
• Exploration and conservation of genetic diversity in horticultural crops
• Geographical and environmental variation in chemical constituents and antioxidant properties in medicinal plants
• Understanding physiological and biochemical mechanisms of abiotic stress tolerance in genetic resources of horticultural crops using traditional and modern phenotyping techniques
• Understanding molecular mechanisms underlying the different types of abiotic stress tolerance in genetic resources of horticultural crops through diverse facets of the multi-omics approach that involve genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics

Keywords: Horticultural crops, genetic resources, climatic change, environmental stress, medicinal plants

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.