As the Honorary Editor-in-Chief, I am glad to announce the launch of a new international open access journal Crop Breeding, Genetics and Genomics (CBGG), which is co-established by the State Key Laboratory of Hybrid Rice and Hapres Limited. The journal aims to promote research communications in the areas of crop breeding and genetics by providing a unified forum for botanist and agricultural scientists to share their latest findings with broader audiences worldwide.

With the development of high-throughput sequencing and various technologies, huge progresses have been made in the areas of genomics, phenomics and bioinformatics. Furthermore, the cloning and functional analysis of crop genes have also been developed rapidly. Modern molecular breeding techniques, such as molecular marker-assisted breeding, transgenic breeding, and molecular design breeding, have gradually become common tools available to plant breeders worldwide. The genome editing technologies represented by CRISPR/Cas have made continuous breakthroughs in recent years. They have been used as plant breeding tools to target and modify DNA with great accuracy and high efficiency.

At the same time, the crop science community need to seek novel analytical paradigms to extract information from the overwhelming amounts of gene data generated by high-throughput sequencing technologies. Since the beginning of CRISPR/Cas9's use for genome editing, reports of off‐targets have caused concerns among users. With the world population set to touch the 9 billion mark in 2050, we are in desperate need of new inventions and practices in the field of agriculture. There is still a long way to go.

The State Key Laboratory of Hybrid Rice was jointly established by Hunan Hybrid Rice Research Center and Wuhan University, approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China in 2011. We have been carrying out innovative research on sustainable development of hybrid rice to provide theoretical basis and technical support for China's sustainable food production and ensure world food security. The laboratory publishes 80–100 papers every year and has so far published more than 600 papers in prestigious journals. It has also received numerous awards, such as the National Scientific and Technological Progress Special Award, the Second Prize of the Chinese National Natural Science Award, and the Second Prize of the National Technological Invention Award. The laboratory has been funded by the National Fund Committee and the Ministry of Education. It has made tremendous contributions to the research on the hybrid rice breeding for super high yield and resistance to abiotic and biotic stress.

I am a plant breeder at Hunan Hybrid Rice Research Center and widely acknowledged for the discovery of the genetic basis of heterosis in rice. As rice is a self-pollinating plant, it had been long assumed that developing vigorous hybrids was not possible. My team’s work has disproved this assumption. I have been engaged in hybrid rice breeding for more than 50 years and was honored to be elected as a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering in 1995 and a foreign associate of the US National Academy of Sciences in 2006.

I am very pleased to receive the proposal to serve as the Honorary Editor-in-Chief of the journal CBGG, and have accepted it immediately. I will work together with the State Key Laboratory of Hybrid Rice and Hapres to do our utmost to create an advanced publication forum for botanists and agricultural scientists specialized in crop breeding and evolution, genetics, functional genomics, bioinformatics and biotechnology.

Hapres is an international scientific journal publisher dedicated to better serving the academic communities and advancing research communication by making quality content freely accessible to the widest audience. The editorial team at Hapres has extensive open access publishing experience and publishes international academic journals in strict accordance with internationally recognized standards and best practices recommended by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

We have successfully brought together around 50 distinguished researchers and experts across the world with wide range of expertise covering all branches of crop breeding and genetics to form the editorial board of the journal CBGG. The rich experience and in-depth knowledge of our editorial board will ensure fast and quality peer reviews of all submissions, and help the wide and timely dissemination of high quality research information published in the journal.

We look forward to receiving your submissions. Publication fees for all papers submitted in 2019 will be waived. The editorial office provides Fast Track publication for free, with which you can expect a first-round decision in as little as 1–2 week(s) and article appearing online 72 hours of acceptance. Please note all publications are subject to rigorous, independent peer review. Published papers are freely and permanently available online for fellow researchers and practitioners all over the world to read and cite immediately on publication.

Let’s work together to make the journal CBGG a highly visible and impactful journal!