The Role of Molecular Breeding in Improving Agronomic Traits of Rice

Dear Colleagues,

Rice is the staple food of more than half of the world’s population and improving rice production is a major challenge due to the global population explosion and climate change. Traditional breeding has played a major role in improving rice yields, but it is time-consuming and laborious. With the rapid development of molecular biology in recent decades, molecular breeding using molecular marker-assisted selection, genome-wide selection, and other techniques has shown great advantages in improving the agronomic traits of rice. Additionally, genome editing technology can accurately modify the DNA sequences of multiple genes simultaneously and in a short period of time, which represents great application prospects for improving multiple traits in a variety of species, including rice. Therefore, the combined use of molecular breeding and traditional breeding will come to be a better means of improving the agronomic traits of rice.

This Special Issue focuses on recent advances in the role molecular breeding plays in improving the agronomic traits of rice. Submitted papers could cover the development of high-throughput molecular marker-assisted selection modules for several key known genes that are important for agronomic traits, the mining of breeding-favorable alleles of known genes or unknown genes, and the validation of their functions. All original research, opinions, and reviews are welcome.

Dr. Yuexing Wang
Dr. Penggen Duan
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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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 2600 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.

• rice
• molecular breeding
• marker-assisted selection
• genome editing
• panicle type
• grain size
• yield
• plant height
• tiller
• growth period