Plants under Emergency – Crop Protection, Mitigation Approaches and Challenges

Dear Colleagues,

At present, agriculture production is becoming increasingly challenged by an ever-growing population, in a scenario of imminent climate instability and the spread of emerging pest and diseases. Recent works and reports on the area clearly suggest that major actions need to be taken now in order to prevent greater future costs in terms of agricultural yield and profits. Abiotic and biotic pressures are pushing plants beyond their tolerance boundaries, impacting crop growth and yield worldwide, ultimately compromising food safety and quality. This Special Issue (SI) aims to tackle these issues, particularly focusing on: 

• Crop adaptation to climate change and environmental contamination;
• Plant responses to emergent biotic and abiotic pressures;
• Diseases and pest management;
• Biocontrol approaches;
• Development of mitigation tools against abiotic stresses;
• Food safety and quality. 

Integrated in a series of three annually organized seminars, this Special Issue aims to provide readers with a comprehensive and cohesive collection of papers dealing with the alarming effects of climate change and environmental contamination on plant responses, ranging from fundamental studies focusing on signaling processes and biochemical and molecular assays, to approaches with direct impact on the agronomic scenario.

We welcome all scientific works (original research papers, perspectives, hypotheses, opinions, reviews, modelling approaches, and methods) in this domain.

Prof. Fernanda Fidalgo
Prof. Dr. Conceição Santos
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.