Dear Colleagues,

Cereals are the most important crops in the world. The growing human population and subsequent demand for higher-quality food are imposing unprecedented challenges to the global food supply. This Special Issue of Agronomy aims to cope with these challenges to improve crop yield and quality. It is more important to better understand the molecular basis of agronomical important traits such as crop yield and quality and their interaction under stress conditions. Therefore, it is critical to develop new methods to introduce and translate basic research into practical breeding programs.

In this Special Issue, we invite original research and review articles covering germplasm, functional genomics, molecular genetics of yield, and quality from basic research to application in crops, such as rice, wheat, maize, and other cereals. Particular attention will be given to the opportunities to use genetic engineering approaches to address the current challenges in crop breeding.

Prof. Dr. Fei Dai
Prof. Dr. Dawei Xue
Prof. Dr. Cheng Liu
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.

• crop improvement
• breeding techniques
• yield
• quality
• genetic engineering
• functional genomics
• genetic diversity