Special Collection: Host Resistance Confers Healthy Crops

Sustainable crop production is essential for human civilisation. However, crop production is continuously threatened by disease and pests, resulting in average grain losses of 25–40% each year. Applying host-plant resistance, alone or in combination with other tactics, is a proven strategy to reduce the impact of biotic constraints on crop yield and quality.

The Crop Journal special collection, Host Resistance Confers Healthy Crops, was compiled in honor of the International Year of Plant Health 2020. This collection showcases 12 articles on the discovery, application and insight mechanisms of disease resistance genes in wheat, rice and maize.

We hope it will help to raise global awareness of the importance of protecting crop health in order to sustain human life, fight hunger, reduce poverty, protect the environment, and boost economic development.

Enjoy reading the papers in this special collection.

• Can effectoromics and loss-of-susceptibility be exploited for improving Fusarium head blight resistance in wheat?
  Andrii Gorash, Rita Armonienė, Kemal Kazan
• Integration of meta-QTL discovery with omics: Towards a molecular breeding platform for improving wheat resistance to Fusarium head blight
  Tong Zheng,Chen Hua, Lei Li, Zhengxi Sun, Minmin Yuan, Guihua Bai, Gavin Humphreys, Tao Li
• Powdery mildew disease resistance and marker-assisted screening at the Pm60 locus in wild diploid wheat Triticum urartu
  Fukai Zhao, Yinghui Li, Baoju Yang, Hongbo Yuan, Cong Jin, Lixun Zhou, Hongcui Pei, Lifang Zhao, Yiwen Li, Yilin Zhou, Jiankun Xie, Qian-Hua Shen
• Pm67, a new powdery mildew resistance gene transferred from Dasypyrum villosum chromosome 1V to common wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)
  Ruiqi Zhang, Chuanxi Xiong, Huanqing Mu, Ruonan Yao, Xiangru Meng, Lingna Kong, Liping Xing, Jizhong Wu, Yigao Feng, Aizhong Cao
• QTL mapping of adult plant resistance to stripe rust and leaf rust in a Fuyu 3/Zhengzhou 5389 wheat population
  Takele Weldu Gebrewahid, Peipei Zhang, Yue Zhou, Xiaocui Yan, Xianchun Xia, Zhonghu He, Daqun Liu, Zaifeng Li
• Wheat Elongator subunit 4 is required for epigenetic regulation of host immune response to Rhizoctonia cerealis
  Kai Wang, Wei Rong, Yuping Liu, Hui Li, Zengyan Zhang
• OsGF14b modulates defense signaling pathways in rice panicle blast response
  Shijuan Yan, Qing Liu, Thomas Naake, Wenjie Huang, Mengyu Chen, Qian Kong, Sheng Zhang, Wenyan Li, Xuan Li, Qinjian Liu, Jianyuan Yang, Alisdair R. Fernie, Bin Liu
• Intron-targeted gene insertion in rice using CRISPR/Cas9: A case study of the Pi-ta gene
  Yang Xu, Fangquan Wang, Zhihui Chen, Jun Wang, Wen-Qi Li, Fangjun Fan, Yajun Tao, Ling Zhao, Weigong Zhong, Qian-Hao Zhu, Jie Yang
• Changes in the epigenome and transcriptome of rice in response to Magnaporthe oryzae infection
  Na Cui, Xiaofeng Chen, Yan Shi, Meirong Chi, Jiantuan Hu, Kunlong Lai, Zonghua Wang, Haifeng Wang
• Comparative microRNA profiling reveals microRNAs involved in rice resistant response to bacterial blight
  Jialing Lu, Chunchao Wang, Fan Zhang, Dan Zeng, Yongli Zhou
• Transcriptomic responses in resistant and susceptible maize infected with Fusarium graminearum
  Guangsheng Yuan, Xiujing He, Hui Li, Kui Xiang, Li Liu, Chaoying Zou, Haijian Lin, Zhiming Zhang, Guangtang Pan
• Genome-wide association study and genomic prediction of Fusarium ear rot resistance in tropical maize germplasm
  Yubo Liu, Guanghui Hu, Ao Zhang, Alexander Loladze, Yingxiong Hu, Hui Wang, Jingtao Qu, Xuecai Zhang, Michael Olsen, Felix San Vicente, Jose Crossa, Feng Lin, Boddupalli M. Prasanna