Despite recent advances in molecular tools and genome sequencing, cereal crop diseases remain a significant challenge to global food security. Yield losses each year from fungi, bacteria, oomycete, viruses, and nematodes need substantial economic investment and impact the world's poorest populations disproportionately. Climate change exacerbates the problem, altering pathogen ranges, allowing the spread of existing plant diseases into new growing areas while facilitating the emergence of new pathogenic strains. Global trade compounds the challenge of pathogen spread. Thus, there is a pressing need for a detailed understanding of the biology of cereal crop diseases, with an expectation that this will identify plant strengths and weaknesses that can be exploited to safeguard grain sources.

In this MPMI Focus Issue, we seek to draw together, through reviews and original research papers, the contemporary developments in understanding staple cereal crops and their pathogens. We encourage papers focused on pathogen, host biology, or both. Investigations should be at the molecular, cellular, and/or genomic level and may include studies of effector function and evolution, plant receptors, and pathogen physiology, as well as signal transduction. Both the topic and pathosystem of study are intended to be broad in order to best capture this important field of study. Our goal is that this issue will highlight potential solutions and significant breakthroughs in cereal crop disease research, as well as identify important knowledge gaps, that will guide future studies and ultimately foster the implementation of meaningful management practices.

Focus Issue Editors Lida Derevnina, Ksenia Krasileva, Benjamin Schwessinger, and Richard Wilson look forward to receiving your manuscripts addressing this globally important research area.

Submission Deadline: September 30, 2024

Submit a Manuscript | Instructions to Authors

Benefits to Authors

A Focus Issue offers authors several benefits. A single-topic issue gives scientists an opportunity to publish alongside the related work of their peers to highlight progress in a focal area. This MPMI Focus Issue will be widely promoted and is expected to be highly cited, giving authors maximum exposure.

Papers will be submitted to Crossref, allowing citation tracking and connectivity as this research area moves forward in MPMI and other scientific journals. MPMI  is indexed by PubMed, Web of Science, AGRICOLA, and Scopus, and all content is open access for readers. MPMI  is approved by the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and meets gold open access grant funding requirements.

If you are working on research described herein, submit your manuscript to MPMI and select "Focus Issue" as the article type. Please also indicate in your cover letter that you would like your manuscript to be considered for the 2025 Focus Issue.

For more information about the scope of this issue, please contact MPMI Editor-in-Chief Tim Friesen.

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