Dear Colleagues,

Plant genetic resources play a critical role in providing human populations with adequate, high-quality food, particularly as agricultural production faces new threats, diseases, and a changing climate. Both in situ and ex situ conservation efforts are necessary to preserve and protect current plant cultivars, landraces, and crop wild relatives for future generations. These conservation efforts require research that provides a greater understanding of biogeographical and phylogenetic relationships, genetic diversity, genebanking technologies, and plant breeding applications for thousands of plant species in the wild, botanic gardens, and in genebank/seedbank settings. To succeed, it will be necessary to use novel approaches across diverse disciplines to bring together expertise that will advance the science and improve outcomes.

This Special Issue seeks research and review manuscripts relating to the development and use of new technologies for improved plant conservation efforts both for specific crops and also in a wider conceptual framework. Novel methods that are applicable to crops, that increase efficiencies, and that reveal conservation approaches and strategies will be included. These could relate to the identification and description of in situ sites, the development of new techniques and technologies for plant conservation in genebanks and botanic gardens, as well as the use of plant genetic resources in research and breeding programs, including the reintroduction of ex situ preserved plants into their habitats. We also seek success stories that describe the development of high-impact cultivars or advances that make use of plant genetic resources within genebanks. Manuscripts that provide innovative ways in which genebanking challenges are overcome are particularly welcome. These could include, but are not limited to, improved methods for seed and clonal preservation, increased storage longevity, wider applicability of methods across diverse plant materials, improved information tracking and documentation, the use of phenomics and genomics to document and identify plant materials, and strategies to achieve conservation goals with limited resources. These findings will help to guide future efforts to improve the conservation of plant genetic resources. 

Dr. Gayle Volk
Dr. Wenlu Bi
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. Agronomy 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.

• in situ conservation
• ex situ conservation
• wild species
• seed bank
• cryo bank
• plant diversity
• genebank
• plant genetic resources