**Preface to "Recent Advances in Genetics and Breeding of Major Staple Food Crops"**

Food and nutritional security is of prime importance for achieving zero hunger, improved health, better income and livelihoods of global population. However, the world population is increasing rapidly, which is estimated to reach 10 billion by 2050 and meeting their food and nutritional needs is a major global challenge. As per some recent predictions, we may have to produce 60% more to feed the population, which will be a very tedious task as it needs to be achieved with limited resources such as land, water, labor etc. Moreover, several production constraints, such as the impact of climate change, biotic stresses, abiotic stresses, soil nutrition deficiency problems, etc., have further compounded global food security by affecting the production of food crops, especially major cereals such as rice, wheat and maize—these three crops cover more than 50% of global caloric intake. Hence, there is an urgen<sup>t</sup> need to produce better crop varieties by efficiently using genetic resources and molecular tools. The harnessing of genetic diversity by novel allele mining assisted by recent advances in biotechnological and bioinformatics tools will enhance the utilization of the hidden treasures in the gene bank, and their efficient utilization in crop breeding to produce climate smart, multi-stress tolerant, and nutritious crop varieties. The elucidation of the genetic, physiological, and molecular basis of useful traits are key activities for variety development. High-throughput genotyping systems assisted by bioinformatics and data science provide efficient and easy tools for geneticists and breeders. Recently, new breeding techniques applied in some food crops have become game-changers in the global food crop market.

In this Special Issue, we focus on modern food crop genetics and breeding: plant molecular systems focusing on food crops; olant genetic diversity—QTL and gene identification utilizing high-throughput genotyping systems and their validation; new breeding techniques in food crops—targeted mutagenesis, genome editing, etc.; abiotic and biotic stresses—QTL/gene identification and their molecular physiology; plant nutrition, grain quality improvement, and yield enhancement.

> **Joong Hyoun Chin, B.P. Mallikarjuna Swamy, Yeisoo Yu** *Editors*
