Light and Plant Nutrition

Dear Colleagues,

Over the past few decades, consumers have become more health-conscious and are consuming more vegetables, which are a source of various health-beneficial compounds, including minerals. Various vegetables are widely cultivated in open fields, various tunnels, screenhouses and controlled environment agriculture (CEA). Light is one of the most important environmental factors which has significant effects on plant growth development and metabolism. The technology of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) lighting has increasingly been used in CEA. This allows the light spectrum, intensity, and duration to be tailored to enhance specific physiological responses in plants and optimise the light use efficiency when cultivating high-value crops. Manipulation of light quality using photo-selective netting or films is important for the yield and quality of horticulture plants cultivated in tunnels and screenhouses. Seasonal lighting changes are important for open-field plants. Numerous studies have reported the effects of various lighting conditions on plants' primary and secondary metabolism. However, there is still a lack of information on how manipulation of light parameters can alter mineral nutrient levels and their interactions in various horticultural plants. More than half of the world's population suffers from an insufficient content of micronutrients in their diet, so various modern, safe measures are being sought to improve the nutritional properties of plants. One of the methods is biofortification, which was proposed as a solution to increase the content of mineral nutrients in various plants not only by breeding or biotechnological methods but also by applying various agrotechnological measures, e.g. purposeful selection of artificial lighting, customised targeted nutrition, use of various nanoparticles or adaptation of interaction of other factors. In this case, it is very important to understand the mechanisms of the effects of lighting and other environmental factors on plant mineral metabolism and related changes in the synthesis of bioactive compounds. In this Special Issue, will be published reviews and scientific research focusing on the impact of various light parameters (spectrum, intensity, photoperiod, etc.) on the contents of macro- and microelements and the analysis of their interaction with various bioactive compounds.

Dr. Jurga Miliauskienė
Dr. Aušra Brazaitytė
Dr. Rūta Sutulienė
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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.