Melon (Cucumis melo L.) is a globally grown crop renowned for its juice and flavor. Despite growth in production, the melon industry faces several challenges owing to a wide range of biotic and abiotic stresses throughout the growth and development of melon. The aim of the review article is to consolidate current knowledge on the genetic mechanism of both biotic and abiotic stress in melon, facilitating the development of robust, disease-resistant melon varieties. A comprehensive literature review was performed, focusing on recent genetic and molecular advancements related to biotic and abiotic stress responses in melons. The review emphasizes the identification and analysis of quantitative trait loci (QTLs), functional genes, and molecular markers in two sections. The initial section provides a comprehensive summary of the QTLs and major and minor functional genes, and the establishment of molecular markers associated with biotic (viral, bacterial, and fungal pathogens, and nematodes) and abiotic stress (cold/chilling, drought, salt, and toxic compounds). The latter section briefly outlines the molecular markers employed to facilitate marker-assisted backcrossing (MABC) and identify cultivars resistant to biotic and abiotic stressors, emphasizing their relevance in strategic marker-assisted melon breeding. These insights could guide the incorporation of specific traits, culminating in developing novel varieties, equipped to withstand diseases and environmental stresses by targeted breeding, that meet both consumer preferences and the needs of melon breeders.

The agricultural sector faces colossal challenges amid environmental changes and a burgeoning human population. In this context, crops must adapt to evolving climatic conditions while meeting increasing production demands. The dairy industry is anticipated to hold the highest value in the agriculture sector in future. The rise in the livestock population is expected to result in an increased demand for fodder feed. Consequently, it is crucial to seek alternative options, as crops demand fewer resources and are resilient to climate change. Pearl millet offers an apposite key to these bottlenecks, as it is a promising climate resilience crop with significantly low energy, water and carbon footprints compared to other crops. Numerous studies have explored its potential as a fodder crop, revealing promising performance. Despite its capabilities, pearl millet has often been overlooked. To date, few efforts have been made to document molecular aspects of fodder-related traits. However, several QTLs and candidate genes related to forage quality have been identified in other fodder crops, which can be harnessed to enhance the forage quality of pearl millet. Lately, excellent genomic resources have been developed in pearl millet allowing deployment of cutting-edge genomics-assisted breeding for achieving a higher rate of genetic gains. This review would facilitate a deeper understanding of various aspects of fodder pearl millet in retrospect along with the future challenges and their solution. This knowledge may pave the way for designing efficient breeding strategies in pearl millet thereby supporting sustainable agriculture and livestock production in a changing world.

Drought stress is one of the most critical abiotic factors which negatively impacts on growth, productivity, and survival of plants. Grass species have an important role in the sustainable intensification of cropping systems. This review focus on the specific drought tolerance characteristics in grass species and application of prevalent classical and molecular methods for genetic improvement of them to drought stress. Generally, grass species adapt to drought stress by utilizing more than one strategy including of changes in the root growth, photosynthetic pigments, activation of antioxidant enzymes, and accumulation of compatible osmolytes. They also have other specific characteristics consisted of summer dormancy, drought recovery, and persistence, which lead to drought adaptation after prolonged drought. Studies on different grasses, indicated that most of above mentioned traits usually have positive correlation with drought tolerance. Also, high heritability has been reported for most of them in different grasses. Therefore, an effective index might be considering in identification of drought tolerance genotypes. Recently, high-throughput imaging phenotyping and advanced molecular techniques such as genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS), RNA sequencing, genome-wide association study, and genome editing help conventional breeding methods to increase the accuracy, selection efficiency, genetic gains, and speed of breeding programs for developing drought tolerant cultivars.

Millets stand out as a sustainable crop with the potential to address the issues of food insecurity and malnutrition. These small-seeded, drought-resistant cereals have adapted to survive a broad spectrum of abiotic stresses. Researchers are keen on unravelling the regulatory mechanisms that empower millets to withstand environmental adversities. The aim is to leverage these identified genetic determinants from millets for enhancing the stress tolerance of major cereal crops through genetic engineering or breeding. This review sheds light on transcription factors (TFs) that govern diverse abiotic stress responses and play role in conferring tolerance to various abiotic stresses in millets. Specifically, the molecular functions and expression patterns of investigated TFs from various families, including bHLH, bZIP, DREB, HSF, MYB, NAC, NF-Y and WRKY, are comprehensively discussed. It also explores the potential of TFs in developing stress-tolerant crops, presenting a comprehensive discussion on diverse strategies for their integration.

Trait prioritization studies have guided research, development and investment decisions for public-sector crop breeding programmes since the 1970s, but the research design, methods and tools underpinning these studies are not well understood. We used PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic review and Meta-Analysis Protocols) to evaluate research on trait ranking for major crops over the past 40 years (1980-2023). Data extraction and descriptive analysis on 657 papers show uneven attention to crops, lack of systematic sex disaggregation and regional bias. The lack of standardized trait data taxonomy across studies, and inconsistent research design and data collection practices make cross-comparison of findings impossible. In addition, network mapping of authors and donors shows patterns of concentration and the presence of silos within research areas. This study contributes to the next generation of innovation in trait preference studies to produce more inclusive, demand-driven varietal design that moves beyond trait prioritization focused on productivity and yield.

CONCLUSIONS: Plant Biomarkers are objective indicators of a plant\'s cellular state in response to abiotic and biotic stress factors. They can be explored in crop breeding and engineering to produce stress-tolerant crop species. Global food production safely and sustainably remains a top priority to feed the ever-growing human population, expected to reach 10 billion by 2050. However, abiotic and biotic stress factors negatively impact food production systems, causing between 70 and 100% reduction in crop yield. Understanding the plant stress responses is critical for developing novel crops that can adapt better to various adverse environmental conditions. Using plant biomarkers as measurable indicators of a plant\'s cellular response to external stimuli could serve as early warning signals to detect stresses before severe damage occurs. Plant biomarkers have received considerable attention in the last decade as pre-stress indicators for various economically important food crops. This review discusses some biomarkers associated with abiotic and biotic stress conditions and highlights their importance in developing stress-resilient crops. In addition, we highlighted some factors influencing the expression of biomarkers in crop plants under stress. The information presented in this review would educate plant researchers, breeders, and agronomists on the significance of plant biomarkers in stress biology research, which is essential for improving plant growth and yield toward sustainable food production.

Traditional crop breeding techniques are not quickly boosting yields to fulfill the expanding population needs. Long crop lifespans hinder the ability of plant breeding to develop superior crop varieties. Due to the arduous crossing, selecting, and challenging processes, it can take decades to establish new varieties with desired agronomic traits. Develop new plant varieties instantly to reduce hunger and improve food security. As a result of the adoption of conventional agricultural techniques, crop genetic diversity has decreased over time. Several traditional and molecular techniques, such as genetic selection, mutant breeding, somaclonal variation, genome-wide association studies, and others, have improved agronomic traits associated with agricultural plant productivity, quality, and resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses. In addition, modern genome editing approaches based on programmable nucleases, CRISPR, and Cas9 proteins have escorted an exciting new era of plant breeding. Plant breeders and scientists worldwide rely on cutting-edge techniques like quick breeding, genome editing tools, and high-throughput phenotyping to boost crop breeding output. This review compiles discoveries in numerous areas of crop breeding, such as using genome editing tools to accelerate the breeding process and create yearly crop generations with the desired features, to describe the shift from conventional to modern plant breeding techniques.

In this study, hotspot regions, QTL clusters, and candidate genes for eight ear-related traits of maize (ear length, ear diameter, kernel row number, kernel number per row, kernel length, kernel width, kernel thickness, and 100-kernel weight) were summarized and analyzed over the past three decades. This review aims to (1) comprehensively summarize and analyze previous studies on QTLs associated with these eight ear-related traits and identify hotspot bin regions located on maize chromosomes and key candidate genes associated with the ear-related traits and (2) compile major and stable QTLs and QTL clusters from various mapping populations and mapping methods and techniques providing valuable insights for fine mapping, gene cloning, and breeding for high-yield and high-quality maize. Previous research has demonstrated that QTLs for ear-related traits are distributed across all ten chromosomes in maize, and the phenotypic variation explained by a single QTL ranged from 0.40% to 36.76%. In total, 23 QTL hotspot bins for ear-related traits were identified across all ten chromosomes. The most prominent hotspot region is bin 4.08 on chromosome 4 with 15 QTLs related to eight ear-related traits. Additionally, this study identified 48 candidate genes associated with ear-related traits. Out of these, five have been cloned and validated, while twenty-eight candidate genes located in the QTL hotspots were defined by this study. This review offers a deeper understanding of the advancements in QTL mapping and the identification of key candidates associated with eight ear-related traits. These insights will undoubtedly assist maize breeders in formulating strategies to develop higher-yield maize varieties, contributing to global food security.

Eggplant is an important horticultural crop and one of the most widely grown vegetables in the Solanaceae family. Eggplant fruit-related agronomic traits are complex quantitative traits with low efficiency and long cycle time for traditional breeding selection. With the rapid development of high-throughput sequencing technology and bioinformatics tools, genome-wide association study (GWAS) has shown great application potential in analyzing the genetic rules of complex agronomic traits related to eggplant fruits. This paper first reviews the progress of genome-wide association analysis in eggplant fruit shape, fruit color and other fruit-related agronomic traits. Subsequently, aiming at the problem of missing heritability, which is common in the genetic studies of eggplant quantitative traits, this paper puts forward the development strategies of eggplant GWAS in the future based on the hot spots of application of four GWAS strategies in the research of agronomics traits related to eggplant fruits. Lastly, the application of GWAS strategy in the field of eggplant molecular breeding is expected to provide a theoretical basis and reference for the future use of GWAS to analyze the genetic basis of various eggplant fruit-related traits and to select fruit materials that meet consumer needs.

Both the fruit flesh and seeds of sea buckthorn have multiple uses for medicinal and culinary purposes, including the valuable market for supplementary health foods. Bioactive compounds, such as essential amino acids, vitamins B, C, and E, carotenoids, polyphenols, ursolic acid, unsaturated fatty acids, and other active substances, are now being analyzed in detail for their medicinal properties. Domestication with commercial orchards and processing plants is undertaken in many countries, but there is a large need for improved plant material with high yield, tolerance to environmental stress, diseases, and pests, suitability for efficient harvesting methods, and high contents of compounds that have medicinal and/or culinary values. Applied breeding is based mainly on directed crosses between different subspecies of Hippophae rhamnoides. DNA markers have been applied to analyses of systematics and population genetics as well as for the discrimination of cultivars, but very few DNA markers have as yet been developed for use in selection and breeding. Several key genes in important metabolic pathways have, however, been identified, and four genomes have recently been sequenced.