Dear Colleagues,

The development of stress-resilient horticultural crops with improved traits is critical for ensuring food security, adaptation to the changing climate and improving environmental sustainability towards the promotion of sustainable agriculture. This Special Issue focuses on the understanding of stress-resilience in horticultural crops for improved crop yields and quality with minimal stress-induced damage using cutting-edge technologies and innovative breeding strategies that assist in the understanding of complex biological systems in an integrative and prognostic way and advance our understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying stress tolerance in horticultural crops.

This Special Issue will encompass different aspects of novel approaches to stress tolerance, such as the use of multi-omics tools along with emerging genome engineering tools that can expand our understanding of how plant's physiology is modulated in response to the changing environmental conditions, the molecular mechanisms underlying stress tolerance in plants and our understanding of gene function. The use of such tools in horticultural breeding is expected to revolutionize the trait improvement of horticultural crops. Furthermore, the interaction with beneficial microorganisms to induce stress resilience will offer new insights into targeted breeding programs. Other aspects include the importance of identifying genetic variations in horticultural genetic recourses that can be employed in breeding programs for improved traits and stress resilience.

This Special Issue invites contributions of original research and review/mini-review articles on recent advancements in the field, specifically on trait improvement and stress resilience in horticultural crops, using integrated omics-oriented approaches and modern breeding tools. Contributions highlighting the usefulness of new genotyping, phenotyping and modelling techniques to improve the understanding and prediction of complex traits in breeding programs are welcome.

Dr. Evangelia Stavridou
Dr. Panagiotis Madesis
Dr. Irini Nianiou-Obeidat
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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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. Agriculture is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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 2600 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.

• biotic and abiotic stress
• stress response mechanisms
• molecular markers
• marker assisted breeding
• genetic diversity
• genomics
• metagenomics
• phenotyping
• gene expression
• genome editing
• metabolic engineering
• epigenetic regulation of stress resilience