Plant Growth and Development in North America

Dear Colleagues,

Plants form the basis of the life and health of the planet and our sustainable future. In the United States, cropland covers about 17% of the land area, and agriculture accounts for significant freshwater withdrawals. Plants promote carbon sequestration, serve as molecular incubators for phytomedicines (antimicrobials, antineoplastics) and vaccines, and remediate legacy and emerging pollutants, but also contribute to harmful algal bloom and greenhouse gas emissions. Improving the quality and quantity of food is key to alleviate increasing food insecurity globally. Addressing these issues sustainably, however, has remained a challenge.

Each year, a large body of literature encompassing advances in plant growth and development are published. However, there are several areas that merit further investigation. Novel methods and tools for growing crops in hydroponics/aeroponics, developing climate-tolerant crops with high yield, identifying hyper-/hypo-accumulators of both the legacy and contaminants of emerging concerns (CECs), using engineered nanomaterials for improving crop nutritional quality, identifying factors and elucidating molecular mechanisms underpinning nano-phytotoxicty, sensing, signaling, and other regulatory mechanisms underlying plant defense system, use of mycorrhizae and other symbionts promoting crop yield—all of these areas of research require detailed elucidation. Other topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the use of plants as a biofactory for developing drugs and vaccines, the use of non‐invasive imaging, sensors and plug‐and‐play portable technologies, enabling computational advances such as machine learning and AI, and manipulative experiments such as modifying root system architecture (RSA) to reduce contaminant uptake by crops (rice, wheat, corn, soybean).

In this Special Issue, original research articles, reviews and opinions/perspectives dedicated to the various areas of plant growth and development as identified above, and other related topics, are welcome. Research conducted in the Northern America are prioritized for this Special Issue.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Lok. R. Pokhrel
Dr. Praveen Kumar Kathare
Guest Editors

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• plant growth and development
• hyper-/hypo-accumulators
• plants as biofactory
• root system architecture
• biouptake
• oxidative stress
• molecular mechanisms
• gene editing
• nanophytotoxicity