Special Issue "Resistance and Tolerance Mechanisms to Crop Diseases and Their Effect on Grain Yield, Nitrogen Dynamics and Quality Traits"

Dear Colleagues,

The most appropriate forms of disease management are genetic resistance and tolerance combined with cultural practices, thus increasing food security without an increase in production costs or environmental contamination due to the use of agrochemicals. Disease tolerance and resistance are two interconnected but distinct defense mechanisms that plants use to combat diseases caused by pathogens. Disease tolerance involves reducing the negative impacts of a pathogen on crop yield and quality. It is complex and may involve several factors operating at different levels to maintain yield performance in the presence of disease symptoms, while disease resistance entails the active prevention of pathogen colonization of the plant. Both mechanisms involve intricate genetic and molecular pathways that can be manipulated to improve plant health and productivity. 

In this Special Issue, we invite original research and reviews describing the current state of our understanding of disease tolerance and resistance in crops and their impacts on grain yield, quality and nitrogen dynamics. Studies reporting on different approaches including the epidemiology, ecophysiology, and genetic and molecular mechanisms involved in disease tolerance and resistance, as well as the potential applications of this knowledge in plant breeding and biotechnology to develop more resistant and tolerant crop varieties, are welcome.

Dr. Matías Schierenbeck
Prof. Maria Rosa Simon
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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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.

• disease management
• crop protection
• disease resistance
• plant ecophysiology
• crops
• nitrogen
• grain yield
• source/sink ratio
• plant–pathogen interaction