Stress Tolerance in Horticulture: From Germplasm Evaluation, Physiology, Molecular, Metabolism and Biotechnology to Plant Genetic Improvement

A special issue of Horticulturae (ISSN 2311-7524). This special issue belongs to the section "Biotic and Abiotic Stress".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2025 | Viewed by 431

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Wuhan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, LuoYu East Road 38, Wuhan 430074, China
Interests: evaluation of plant abiotic stress and involved mechanisms; horticultural biotechnology used to treat abiotic stress; horticultural plant genetic markers for key agronomic traits and breeding

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Horticultural plants are not only a source of abundant food and essential nutrients for humans, but they also have many medical and health functions. Not only that, they are very important in environmental beautification, but also play an important role in maintaining the ecological environment, reducing soil pollution, controlling atmospheric humidity and reducing dust and noise.

Currently, horticultural plants are challenged by abiotic stress factors such as climate change, heavy metal pollution, rising near-surface ozone concentrations, drought or flooding, extreme temperatures (cold, frost and high temperatures), as well as toxicity from salt alkali, mineral deficiencies and other pollutants. The negative effects of abiotic stress can lead to changes in the growth, development and metabolism of horticultural plants, and in extreme cases, can also result in plant death.

Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate how horticultural plants can tolerate and respond to abiotic stress factors.

This Special Issue welcomes submissions of research exploring the effects of different abiotic stresses on horticultural plant (fruit tree, vegetables, flower and medical plants) germplasm resources, including growth, development, absorption, accumulation and tolerance phenotype of horticultural plants. We also welcome research related to cellular oxidative stress, antioxidant and molecular level responses, induced defense and metabolic mechanisms, toxic effects, etc., as well as efforts to solve the stress problems involving physiological approaches, genetic improvement and breeding measures, agronomic cultural practice and biotechnology.

Dr. Linchuan Fang
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • horticultural plants
  • oxidative stress
  • extreme temperature
  • photosystem II
  • transcription regulation

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

19 pages, 642 KiB  
Article
Investigating Salt Tolerance in Melon During Germination and Early Seedling Stages
by Peng Liu, Chao Gao, Yinan Gao, Chongqi Wang, Zigao Jiao, Aolin Xu, Yumei Dong and Jianlei Sun
Horticulturae 2025, 11(4), 397; https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae11040397 - 9 Apr 2025
Viewed by 243
Abstract
This study aimed to investigate the correlation between salt tolerance during the germination and seedling stages in melons by analyzing 10 melon varieties under NaCl stress during germination and seedling stages. We found that 200 mM is the appropriate concentration for screening salt-tolerant [...] Read more.
This study aimed to investigate the correlation between salt tolerance during the germination and seedling stages in melons by analyzing 10 melon varieties under NaCl stress during germination and seedling stages. We found that 200 mM is the appropriate concentration for screening salt-tolerant germplasm in melons. Salt stress led to a decline in germination and seedling growth parameters, while antioxidant enzyme activities and osmotic substance contents significantly increased. Specifically, the activities of CAT and SOD increased by up to 27.22-fold and 6.35-fold, respectively, and soluble protein and proline contents increased by up to 1.03-fold and 1.05-fold, respectively. Varietal differences in salt tolerance traits were observed. Correlation and principal component analyses revealed that 6 germination indicators could be consolidated into 1 comprehensive indicator, accounting for 79.225% of the variance, while 16 seedling-stage indicators were reduced to 3 comprehensive indicators, with a cumulative contribution rate of 75.089%. Membership function and cluster analyses categorized the 10 varieties into 3 groups at both stages, identifying ‘Xindongfangmi’ and ‘Jinyuliuxing’ as salt-tolerant varieties. Additionally, a significant positive correlation (r = 0.834) was found between the comprehensive membership function values of germination and seedling stages. These results provide a scientific basis for assessing melon salt tolerance, indicating that germination-stage salt tolerance may predict seedling-stage salt tolerance. By utilizing PCA, comprehensive evaluation, and cluster analysis of relevant indicators under salt stress during the germination period of melon, the salt tolerance of the seedling stage can be quickly identified. The implementation of rapid salt tolerance screening at the germination stage can facilitate the selection of salt-tolerant germplasm and the development of salt-tolerant melon varieties. Full article
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