Breeding by Design: Advances in Vegetables

A special issue of Horticulturae (ISSN 2311-7524). This special issue belongs to the section "Vegetable Production Systems".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 April 2025 | Viewed by 7135

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Guest Editor
National Key Laboratory for Germplasm Innovation and Utilization of Horticultural Crops, College of Horticulture and Forestry Sciences, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China
Interests: the vegetable quality (nutrition, flavor) formation and its regulation; molecular biology and biotechnology applied in vegetable crops; vegetable germplasm enhancement and molecular breeding
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

From the bulk selection of wild plants for cultivation during early civilization to Mendelian genetics and genomics-assisted breeding in modem society, breeding methodologies have evolved over the last thousand years. In the past few decades, the use of heterosis and transgenic crops have dramatically enhanced crop productivity and helped feed the increasing world population. With the successive release of genomes and the deciphering of the genetic basis of agronomically important traits, being able to predict and design ideal traits in crops is expected. Breeding by Design aims to control all allelic variations for all genes of agronomic importance. This concept can be achieved through a combination of precise genetic mapping, high-resolution chromosome haplotyping, and extensive phenotyping. Thanks to marker technology and software tools, this goal can now be achieved to produce superior varieties in less time and with higher accuracy.

Breeding by Design has been successively adopted in cereal crops such as maize. For vegetable crops, geneticists and breeders have been engaged in deciphering genetic variations, genomic selection, and computational prediction. In order to promote the development and collaboration of the technology, the proposed Special Issue on “Breeding by Design: Advances in Vegetables” will present advances in genomic variation, genotyping, phenotyping, genomic editing, genomic selection, and genome-based prediction in vegetable crops. We look forward to receiving your manuscripts (reviews and research articles) and are eager to share your results with the research and industry community.

Prof. Dr. Yuyang Zhang
Guest Editor

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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12 pages, 2186 KiB  
Article
Effect of Red and Blue Light on the Growth and Antioxidant Activity of Alfalfa Sprouts
by Kelong Sun, Ying Peng, Mengyuan Wang, Weihu Li, Yang Li and Jianjun Chen
Horticulturae 2024, 10(1), 76; https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae10010076 - 12 Jan 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1787
Abstract
Alfalfa sprouts are popular as a gourmet vegetable that contains a variety of antioxidants with anti-cancer and anti-coronary heart disease properties. In this study, under a photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD) of 30 mol·L−1 photoperiod of 12 h for 3 days, and [...] Read more.
Alfalfa sprouts are popular as a gourmet vegetable that contains a variety of antioxidants with anti-cancer and anti-coronary heart disease properties. In this study, under a photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD) of 30 mol·L−1 photoperiod of 12 h for 3 days, and a temperature of 25 ± 2 °C, we investigated the effects of different light qualities on the growth, nutritional quality and antioxidant activity of alfalfa sprouts by modulating LEDs with different red and blue ratios, and searched for suitable light-quality conditions for alfalfa sprout growth. The experimental results showed that the dark treatment favored the growth of alfalfa sprout hypocotyls and the increase of soluble sugar content; alfalfa fresh weight was the largest under the white and red light treatments; nitrate content was the lowest in the treatment with a red-to-blue ratio of 2:2 (2R2B); soluble proteins and total phenolic content were the highest in the treatment with red-to-blue ratio of 1:3 (1R3B); and the total antioxidant activity of sprouts was the highest in the blue light treatment. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Breeding by Design: Advances in Vegetables)
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18 pages, 854 KiB  
Article
Assessment of Gene Action and Identification of Heterotic Hybrids for Enhancing Yield in Field Pea
by Indu Yadav, Vijay Sharma, Mukul Kumar, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Anuj Mishra, Vivek Singh, Parmdeep Singh Dhanda, Alpa Yadav, Manisha Yadav, Shalesh Kumar Singh, Kamaluddin, Pawan Kumar Prajapati, Prashant Kaushik and Vaishali Gangwar
Horticulturae 2023, 9(9), 997; https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae9090997 - 4 Sep 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1409 | Correction
Abstract
Eight field pea parental lines and their twenty-eight F1s resulting from diallel design (excluding reciprocal) were analyzed for their combining ability and heterosis for yield and associated traits. ANOVA revealed significant variation among parents and among hybrids for days to 50% [...] Read more.
Eight field pea parental lines and their twenty-eight F1s resulting from diallel design (excluding reciprocal) were analyzed for their combining ability and heterosis for yield and associated traits. ANOVA revealed significant variation among parents and among hybrids for days to 50% flowering, plant height, total number of pods, effective pods, seeds per pod, 100-seed weight, biological yield and seed yield; pod length also revealed significant differences among hybrids, suggesting the occurrence of considerable variability for studied traits. Crosses P-1541-16 × P-92-97-11 and P-1541-16 × P-1297-97 displayed significant heterosis over better-parent and control varieties for seed yield and associated traits. Combining ability analysis showedthat SCAvariance was considerably higher than corresponding GCAvariance for all traits. Genotype Aman and P-1297-97 were identified as good general combiners for seed yield, while cross P-1541-16 × P-1297-97, Aman × EC-564817, P-1541-16 × P-92-97-11 and P-1297-97 × P-92-97-11 were identified as specific cross-combiners for most of the studied traits. Consequently, these crosses might be exploited in future breeding programs to find desired segregants. PCA explained 81.68% and 83.34% variability in parents and crosses, respectively, for yield component. Furthermore, trait association between GCA effects and SCA effects demonstrates that biological yield, total number of pods, and effective pods exhibit additive gene action, but 100-seed weight exhibits non-additive gene action. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Breeding by Design: Advances in Vegetables)
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16 pages, 4296 KiB  
Article
Fine Mapping and Candidate Gene Analysis of the Gv1 Locus Controlling Green-Peel Color in Eggplant (Solanum melongena L.)
by Zijian Lv, Qingmin Jin, Zhiliang Li, Tao Li, Yikui Wang, Qian You, Chao Gong, Zhou Heng and Baojuan Sun
Horticulturae 2023, 9(8), 888; https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae9080888 - 4 Aug 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1444
Abstract
Peel color is one of the most important appearance qualities of eggplant. The main pigment in the peel of green-fruited eggplant is chlorophyll, while white-fruited eggplant is a mutant of chlorophyll biosynthesis. A dominant gene Gv controls chlorophyll biosynthesis in eggplant peel, but [...] Read more.
Peel color is one of the most important appearance qualities of eggplant. The main pigment in the peel of green-fruited eggplant is chlorophyll, while white-fruited eggplant is a mutant of chlorophyll biosynthesis. A dominant gene Gv controls chlorophyll biosynthesis in eggplant peel, but none of its genes have been mapped. In this study, the white-peel inbred line 19141, the green-peel inbred line 19143, and their F2 progeny with 3:1 segregation ratio of green-peel plants to white-peel plants, were used to map the Gv1 locus by whole genome re-sequencing combined with bulked segregant analysis (BSA). The Gv1 gene was mapped in a region spanning 7.66 Mb on chromosome 8, which was narrowed down to 173.2 kb interval by screening recombinant plants with InDel and SNP markers. Sixteen candidate genes were annotated in the above closely associated region. With the aid of RNA-Seq data, it was speculated that SmAPPR2-like is the candidate gene for Gv1. The results of cloning and sequencing of SmAPPR2-like showed that there might have been three types of mutation (large deletion, frameshift variant and premature stop codon) in white-peel accessions, and of these, the deletion mutation, such as that in inbred line 19141, was the most common. Based on the sequence difference of SmAPPR2-like, molecular markers were developed to distinguish the white and green-peel accessions in natural eggplant populations, and the other types of genetic variations of SmAPPR2-like leading to white-peel accessions were elucidated. The present study not only provided reliable markers for MAS (marker-assisted selection) breeding for eggplant peel color, but also paved the way for understanding the molecular mechanism of SmAPPR2-like on chlorophyll biosynthesis in eggplant fruit. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Breeding by Design: Advances in Vegetables)
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14 pages, 3557 KiB  
Article
Functional Analysis of SmMYB39 in Salt Stress Tolerance of Eggplant (Solanum melongena L.)
by Zheng Jiang, Lei Shen, Jie He, Lihui Du, Xin Xia, Longhao Zhang and Xu Yang
Horticulturae 2023, 9(8), 848; https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae9080848 - 25 Jul 2023
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1404
Abstract
Eggplant (Solanum melongena L.), a widely cultivated vegetable of the Solanaceae family, faces significant challenges in growth and yield due to soil salinization. This study aimed to investigate the functional role of the transcription factor SmMYB39 in salt stress tolerance in eggplant. [...] Read more.
Eggplant (Solanum melongena L.), a widely cultivated vegetable of the Solanaceae family, faces significant challenges in growth and yield due to soil salinization. This study aimed to investigate the functional role of the transcription factor SmMYB39 in salt stress tolerance in eggplant. This investigation was conducted through the utilization of bioinformatics analysis, quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR), subcellular localization, validation of transcriptional activation activity, Virus-Induced Gene Silencing (VIGS), and protein interactome analysis. Bioinformatics analysis revealed that SmMYB39 has the closest relationship with SlMYB41, and its promoter contains multiple stress-responsive elements. qRT-PCR results demonstrated that SmMYB39 was significantly upregulated after 12 h of salt stress. Subcellular localization results indicated that the SmMYB39 protein is localized in the nucleus and exhibits transcriptional activation activity. Using VIGS, we observed that silencing of SmMYB39 led to reduced salt stress tolerance in eggplant. In addition, we have conducted research on the protein interactome of SmMYB39. In conclusion, our study demonstrates that SmMYB39 is a crucial transcription factor involved in salt stress response and has the potential to enhance salt tolerance in eggplant. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Breeding by Design: Advances in Vegetables)
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1 pages, 131 KiB  
Correction
Correction: Yadav et al. Assessment of Gene Action and Identification of Heterotic Hybrids for Enhancing Yield in Field Pea. Horticulturae 2023, 9, 997
by Indu Yadav, Vijay Sharma, Mukul Kumar, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Anuj Mishra, Vivek Singh, Parmdeep Singh Dhanda, Alpa Yadav, Manisha Yadav, Shalesh Kumar Singh, Kamaluddin, Pawan Kumar Prajapati, Prashant Kaushik and Vaishali Gangwar
Horticulturae 2024, 10(7), 749; https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae10070749 - 16 Jul 2024
Viewed by 368
Abstract
The Horticulturae Editorial Office wishes to make the following changes to the author’s paper [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Breeding by Design: Advances in Vegetables)
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