Dear Colleagues,

In modern apple fruit growing, the establishment of plantations to ensure high yields that are relatively constant from one year to another, of superior quality, and in conditions of economic profitability peremptorily requires adequate qualified cultivars, high-efficient cultivation, and advanced postharvest technology to meet the ever-increasing demands of the market, users, processors, consumers, but also producers (farmers), and to adapt to global climate changes.

Over the last few decades, researchers’ attention to this species has grown exponentially, as evidenced by the increasing number of scientific publications, especially those dealing with its basic biology. However, there are still open questions and challenges in this fascinating field, such as apple domestic evolution in quality and stress resistance from the wild, fruit development and flesh quality formation, grafting and rootstock–scion interaction, bud differentiation and dormancy, and life cycle regulation. On the other hand, in the post-genomic era, the analysis of gene functions in apples is required for agricultural utilization and molecular breeding.

In this Special Issue, articles (original research papers, reviews, opinions, perspectives, and methods) that focus on Malus biology, including germplasm resources, genome, evolution, development, genetics, stress, fruit quality, nutrition, cultivation, and postharvest at all levels comprising transcriptome, proteome, metabolome, and epigenome studies, and studies on biochemistry, physiology, genes, proteins, metabolites, stress biology, fruit development, fruit quality, grafting biology, flower development, and postharvest biology, are most welcome.

Dr. Changhai Liu
Guest Editor

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• apple
• breeding
• development
• fruit quality
• grafting
• postharvest biology
• stress biology