Genetics and Novel Techniques for Soybean Pivotal Characters

Dear Colleagues,

Soybean is a worldwide pivotal crop, providing human food, animal feed and industrial materials. Soybean also plays an important role in bio-nitrogen fixation. To meet the ever-growing global population, more than 361.00 million metric tons of soybean have been produced in recent years. With the increasing plant area and yield of soybean, more production problems have been raised and attracted the attention of people. How to breed novel and excellent cultivars and varieties to improve the soybean yield, quality and adaptation to the environment urgently needs to be addressed for human food security.

Currently, the high-quality, reference genome of soybean has been released. However, numerous works are still required to dissect gene functions, signaling networks and regulation mechanisms for the improvement of agronomy traits. Genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, phenomics and metabolomics technology had been applied to determine gene functions. However, their use in soybean breeding and modification has been limited, and there is huge space for the further development and improvement of breeding, biological function detection and technology application. Compared to rice and maize, there are too many gaps needed to be filled for soybean. Moreover, the mechanisms of symbiosis, the specific traits of legume crops, are still largely unclear. We expect that molecular breeding approaches will be more extensively studied and used in soybean genetic improvement. This Special Issue will provide a forum to address this problem and present new progress in related research.

The research topic will cover basic and application-oriented basic studies that support and facilitate soybean breeding and improvement. Both research articles and review articles are welcome. The following issues will be expected to be addressed:

• QTL mapping and marker-assisted selection;
• GWAS and genomic selection/prediction;
• Molecular breeding by design;
• Germplasm application;
• Domestication and selection signatures;
• Genotype x environment interaction;
• Improvement of seed quality and/or nutritional quality traits;
• Nitrogen efficiency modification;
• Symbiosis mechanism detection;
• Breeding for tolerance to biotic stresses;
• Soybean–pathogen interaction
• Increasing the adaptation to the environment.

This special issue is supervised by Prof. Dr. Qingshan Chen and assisted by our Topical Advisory Panel Member Prof. Dr. Dawei Xin (Northeast Agricultural University).

Prof. Dr. Qingshan Chen
Guest Editor

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• QTL mapping and marker-assisted selection
• GWAS and genomic selection/prediction
• molecular breeding by design
• germplasm application
• domestication and selection signatures
• genotype x environment interaction
• improvement of seed quality and/or nutritional quality traits
• nitrogen efficiency modification
• symbiosis mechanism detection
• breeding for tolerance to biotic stresses
• soybean–pathogen interaction
• increasing the adaptation to the environment.