Horticultural Plant Cultivation in the Climate Change Era: From Genotypes to Environment

Dear Colleagues,

Climate change poses one of the most significant challenges to agriculture and horticulture worldwide. Rising temperatures, precipitation variability, and increased frequency of extreme weather events threaten sustainable crop production, which is essential for food security and human nutrition. To address these challenges, it is crucial to develop innovative and regionally adapted strategies that enable maintaining crop productivity and quality.

This Special Issue aims to bring together the latest research advances on horticultural plant cultivation in the context of climate change. The effect on genotype and environment and the exploitation of their interaction would be crucial to provide an adaptation in a new context. Accordingly, the key topics will include the development of new tolerant rootstocks combining biotic stress resistance and adaptation to lower water availability, deficit irrigation strategies to optimise water use, physiological and molecular responses of plants to high temperatures and water availability, and genetic improvement techniques for obtaining climate-resilient varieties and rootstocks.

Rootstocks tolerant to biotic stress and lower water availability

Rootstocks play a vital role in adapting horticultural crops to climate change, as they can combine tolerance to biotic stresses and abiotic stresses such as drought or salinity. This Special Issue will present the latest advances in developing new rootstocks with improved characteristics, such as a more extensive and deeper root system, higher water use efficiency, or enhanced nutrient uptake capacity. Additionally, the physiological and genetic bases of stress tolerance in rootstocks and their impact on the productivity and quality of grafted crops will be discussed.

Deficit irrigation strategies

Water is a scarce resource in many horticultural production regions, making it necessary to optimise its use through deficit irrigation strategies. This Special Issue will present the latest advances in developing and applying deficit irrigation techniques, such as controlled deficit irrigation (CDI) or partial root zone drying (PRD). The effects of these techniques on crop growth, productivity, and quality will be discussed, as well as the physiological and molecular mechanisms involved in plant responses to moderate water stress.

Adaptation to high temperatures

Temperature increase is one of the primary limiting factors for horticultural production in many regions worldwide. This Special Issue will address the physiological and molecular responses of horticultural crops to high temperature stress, including changes in photosynthesis, transpiration, nutrient uptake, and gene expression. Additionally, strategies to improve heat tolerance and the role of genotype x environment interactions will be presented.

Genetic improvement for climate resilience

Genetic improvement in rootstocks and varieties plays a crucial role in obtaining horticultural crops adapted to climate change. This Special Issue will discuss the latest genetic improvement techniques, such as marker-assisted selection (MAS), gene editing, or metabolic engineering and their application for obtaining varieties with improved characteristics, such as increased tolerance to abiotic stresses, higher water and nutrient use efficiency, or enhanced nutritional and organoleptic quality.

In summary, this Special Issue aims to be a comprehensive reference on the latest research advances for sustainable horticultural plant cultivation in a context of climate change. The presented works will contribute to improving the adaptation of horticulture to future challenges, ensuring food security and sustainability of production systems.

Dr. Jaime Cebolla-Cornejo
Dr. Salvador Rosello
Guest Editors

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• plant breeding
• sensory quality
• bioactive compounds
• deficit irrigation
• high temperature
• grafting