Durum Wheat: Ancient Crop, Modern Challenges

Durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf.) cultivation dates back to the origin of human civilization in the Levantine, and from there it spread to all corners of the World. It is both a staple crop for smallholder farmers, and a cash crop when its harvest is linked with the industrial transformation to pasta, couscous, Dalia, and burghul.

In this special edition dedicated to durum wheat, we would like to gather the expertise of the best research groups around the World to deliver 10–15 articles that will span the whole spectrum of durum wheat applied research. We are aiming to gather excellent research articles in the following topics/subject areas:

1.Genebank: status of durum wheat collections, characterization, and use.

2.Physiology: useful and usable traits for adaptation of durum wheat to the changing climates.

3.Pre-breeding: identification of exploitable loci and germplasm sources for abiotic and biotic stress tolerance.

4.Breeding: solid multi-locations studies (G + G×E), identification of useful traits, and available genetic diversity within breeding programs. Submissions from developing countries are highly encouraged.

5.Marker assisted selection: report of useful and validated markers to be deployed by durum wheat. breeders.

6.Agronomy: incorporating G×M for durum wheat. Special interest will be given to studies reporting on the deployment of conservation agriculture, fertilization strategies that help increase protein content, experiments under contrasting planting systems or experiments describing crop mixtures.

7.Economy: global status of durum wheat production and future trends.

8.Socio-economy: strategies to understand farmers needs for the durum wheat crop of tomorrow.

We will accept articles that present results from at least two seasons and/or two treatments for physiology, pre-breeding, and agronomy, or five environments for G + G × E studies. We are open to any type of submission concerning durum wheat, as long as novel and interesting conclusions are presented and supported by statistically significant results. All publications will be open access and immediately available online. Publication fees will be fully waived for papers submitted to this special issue.

Dr. Filippo Maria Bassi
Dr. Gemma Molero

Guest Editors

Submission Deadline: 31 January 2021

Online Submission

Manuscripts should be submitted online through Hapres Online Submission System. Please visit Guide for Authors before submitting a manuscript. Authors are encouraged to submit a paper as soon as it is ready and don’t need to wait until the deadline. Submissions will be sent to peer-review in order of arrival. Accepted papers will be published continuously in Crop Breeding, Genetics and Genomics (CBGG) and then gathered together on the special issue webpage. If interested to contribute, please submit a 200–300 words pitch to the Editorial Office indicating a tentative title, authors, and key points of the study for pre-approval.

See Papers Published in This Special Issue

Note

Virtual Special Issue (VSI) is a collection of papers centered around a specific topic, led by an expert (Guest Editor) in the field. Virtual Special Issues are an important component of our journal and cover current hot topics within the scope of the journal.

All papers belonging to a Virtual Special Issue will be gathered together on a single webpage. They are published in the regular issues of the journal as soon as publishable, and labeled as belonging to the Virtual Special Issue. A link from each paper will take you to the Virtual Special Issue website.

Submissions to Virtual Special Issues will undergo the same rigorous peer-review process as regular papers submitted to the journal.

Guest Editors

Dr. Filippo Maria Bassi

International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA), Rabat, Morocco
Dr. Gemma Molero

International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), El Batan, Mexico