Genomics of New Potential Food Sources

Dear Colleagues,

Although the total number of edible plants in the world is huge, only a relatively small number of these comprise all the major commercial food crops (such as rice, wheat, maize, oats, soybeans, cassava, potatoes, apples, sugar beets, olives, oil palm, canola, other beans, etc.). From an ecological perspective, there is relatively little diversity in large-scale commercial farming. In light of the ongoing rapid climate change, improving the robustness of our food supply is critical. This will undoubtedly involve continued improvements or adaptations of major food plants, but it would also be wise to increase the diversity of our food supply by adding additional edible plants at a large economic scale. Traditional breeding to improve the domestication traits of wild plants, even those that are already edible, is typically very slow, requiring hundreds of generations. Genomics offers the potential to greatly reduce these timelines. 

For this Special Issue, we invite manuscripts that involve the application of genomic tools (high throughput genome sequencing, transcriptomics, epigenomics, genome editing) for minor commercial food crops, or edible plants that are not commercially cultivated at all. We recognize that some plants may already be important food sources in parts of the world where they are not major commercial products or are otherwise not major products in Europe and North America (for example sorghum and millet); studies of such plants are also welcome. The emphasis should be on improving their potential as new or more important food sources, to supplement the current major commercial crops. 

Dr. Mark E. Samuels
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Plants is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 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.

• food supply diversity
• edible plants
• minor crops
• genomics
• high throughput sequencing
• transcriptomics
• proteomics
• genome editing