This book offers a comprehensive and state-of-the-art source reference for understanding the functions and mechanisms responsible for yield and quality determination under a range of conditions. By uncovering relationships and challenges of successful and scalable crop management and breeding, this volume addresses the challenges of environmentally sound production of bulk and quality food, fodder, fiber, and energy which are of ongoing international concern. Contemporary agriculture and crop management confronts the challenge of increasing demand in terms of quantitative and qualitative production targets. These targets have to be achieved against a background of climate change, including soil and water scarcity and higher temperatures, and the environmental and social aspects of agricultural sustainability. This book views crop production as an active source of methods, theories, ideas, and tools for application in genetic improvement and agronomy.
Dr. Roxana Savin (Ph.D. in crop physiology at the University of Melbourne, Australia) is currently Professor of the University of Lleida, Catalonia, Spain, Associate Editor of Crop Science, and Coeditor in Chief of Field Crops Research. Her expertise is focused on physiology of yield (both potential and under stress) and grain quality, carbon and nitrogen relationships, and heat and water stress, with some experience in crop modelling. Dr. Savin has published more than 50 papers in JCR-indexed journals and 23 chapters in scientific books of international publishers (e.g., Elsevier, CABI, Springer, Academic Press, Taylor & Francis, etc.) and has coedited Barley Science: Recent Advances from Molecular Biology to Agronomy of Yield and Quality in 2002, published by Haworth Press (USA), and coedited the Crop Science and Technology section in 2012, in Encyclopedia of Sustainability Science and Technology (Springer). Her h-index is 25 (Web of Science, Core Collection) as of March 2018.
Dr. Gustavo A. Slafer (Ph.D., University of Melbourne) is an ICREA (the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies) Research Professor at, and Associate Professor in, the University of Lleida, Catalonia, Spain. He is also currently (i) Honorary Professor of the School of Biosciences, University of Nottingham, UK; (ii) Associate Editor of Crop Science, Euphytica, and Spanish Journal of Agricultural Research; (iii) Member of the Editorial Boards of Field Crops Research, European Journal of Agronomy, and Food and Energy Security; and Member of the Advisory Board of Agricultural and Food Science. Dr. Slafer’s main research interest is the mechanisms underlying the responses of field crops to environmental and genetic factors, focused at the crop level of organization. His expertise is focused on physiology of yield (both potential and under stress), carbon and nitrogen relationships, and ecophysiology of crop developmental processes, with some experience in crop modelling, plant physiology, and agroecology. Dr. Slafer has published more than 170 papers in JCR-indexed journals, the vast majority (more than 90%) in Q1 journals. In addition, Dr. Slafer has also published more than 40 chapters in scientific books of international publishers (e.g., Elsevier, CABI, Springer, Academic Press, Taylor & Francis, etc.) and has edited 6 scientific books published by CABI (UK), Haworth Press (USA), and Marcel Dekker (USA). His h-index as of March 2018 is 50 (Web of Science, Core Collection).
