About this Research Topic

Background

Global climate change is causing an increase in the frequency and intensity of abiotic stresses, including extreme temperatures, variable precipitation, heat waves, droughts, cold snap, floods, as well as also altering pathogens/pest (e.g., fungi, bacteria, viruses, insects) behavior and composition. This, in combination with harsh soil conditions (e.g., high salinity, nutrient deficiency, extreme pH, and high levels of pollutants), is challenging the world’s crop production, stability, and quality. Major food crops such as maize, soybean, wheat, rice, sorghum, barley, and others, are crops with high value that provide energy and nutrition to the global population’s diet. Because of the value and importance of these food crops, trait characterization and development of high-yielding crop varieties with enhanced resiliency to abiotic and biotic stressors will have a large impact on securing global agricultural food production. This will also be crucial to continue supporting sustainability, advancing food security, and improving nutrition throughout the world.

The development of resilient (or ‘smart’) crops has become essential for facing the challenging effects of climate change and for supporting food production for a fast-growing global population while reducing agricultural pollution. Various strategies, tools, and methodologies have been developed to facilitate and accelerate cultivar development with strong adaptation to fast-changing environmental conditions and with biotic stress tolerance.

This Research Topic provides an excellent opportunity to publish research articles discussing the implementation of advanced genetic, omics, and data-driven tools, as well as transgenic, gene silencing, and editing tools for trait discovery and characterization to develop resilient crop varieties. Specific themes explored in this collection include:

• The exploration and use of plant genetic resources to broaden the genetic basis of crops;
• QTL mapping, GWAS, Genomic selection (GS), Haplotype mapping;
• Multiomics-enabled (e.g. genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics and phenomics) trait characterization;
• Gene discovery and functional characterization using modern biotechnological approaches (e.g., transgenics, gene silencing, gene editing).

Keywords: smart crops, genetics, environmental stress, QTL, GWAS, haplotype mapping, multiomics, omics, transgenics, sustainable agriculture

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.

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