Dear Colleagues,

The green revolution was critical in the fight against global starvation. Together with crop breeding programs, the development of chemical fertilisers and pesticides helped farmers to secure crop yields. Unfortunately, in the following decades, the applied chemicals resulted in serious pollution. There is a new wave of revolution in agriculture aiming to harness various microorganisms interacting with plants to realise sustainable and ecosystem-friendly agriculture. The symbiosis between mycorrhizal fungi and plants is at the centre of the application. As symbionts of almost all crops on Earth, mycorrhizal fungi help plant nutrition uptake from soil and enhance plant resistance against various biotic and abiotic stresses. It has been demonstrated that harnessing mycorrhiza has great potential to increase the quantity and quality of crop yields. Thus, the application of mycorrhiza and interacting microbes for crops is a new frontier in agriculture.

However, our understanding of symbiosis for crop productivity change is still limited, especially at the field level. This further hinders the knowledge on appropriate application, resulting in controversial results regarding the application benefits for crops. Therefore, it is crucial to document our current state of knowledge on harnessing mycorrhizal symbiosis for crops and have critical discussions about various aspects of the mycorrhiza application for agriculture.

This Special Issue aims to collect reviews and original papers covering advances in the understanding of mycorrhiza in crops. From pessimism to optimism, all aspects of mycorrhiza application for crops are welcome. The open and critical evaluation of current mycorrhizal fungi and soil microbe applications will lead to the appropriate utilisation of this symbiosis for next-generation agriculture.

Dr. Soon-Jae Lee
Prof. Dr. Li Wang
Guest Editors

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• mycorrhizal symbiosis in crops
• mycorrhizal inoculum application
• misuse of inoculum
• future perspectives of mycorrhizal application
• mycorrhizal symbiosis on crops’ abiotic stress resistance
• interaction mechanism between mycorrhiza and crops
• mycorrhizal community in crop roots