Rice seed feeds more than half of the world's population and our understanding of the molecular regulatory mechanisms underlying rice reproduction has been advancing rapidly. Recent breakthroughs in hybrid rice seed production provide a classic paradigm that how genetic, genomic and molecular scientists are working together to unveil the regulatory networks for improving rice seed development and production. However, the increasing world population with less arable land and unpredictable climate change also challenge us to implement the everlasting task that developping advanced biotechnologies for stable rice production.

This special issue, Rice reproduction for 2050, aims to encourage review and research articles providing novel insights into the seed biology and production in rice, including developmental processes that generate rice seed, such as flowering time control, inflorescence branching and architecture, spikelet specification, male and female gametophyte generation and fertilization, embryo and seed development, as well as techniques for seed quality and production improvements, such as regulation of seed size and metabolism, increasing of stigma exsertion rate and hybrid compatibility for rice hybrid seed production, haploid seed production, and so on.

The Guest Editors, Yaoguang Liu (South China Agricultural University) and Dabing Zhang (Shanghai Jiao Tong University) cordially invite submissions of full-length articles, opinion, review/mini reviews, and perspectives related to these topics. Please note that the topics we list here may not cover all the research in the field of rice seed biology. If your topic is related but not listed here, please feel free to contact us.

Topics covered by this special issue include:

● Control of flowering time and stigma exsertion rate for rice hybrid seed production
●  Rice inflorescence branching and architecture
●  Spikelet specification in rice
● Meiosis and haploidization in rice
● Differentiation and programmed cell death of rice tapetum
● Rice pollen wall development
● Grain size and seed development in rice
● Grain quality of rice
● Rice seed metabolism and germination
● Male sterility and hybrid seed production in rice
● Hybrid compatibility in rice

Guest Editor

Prof. Yaoguang Liu

Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences
College of Life Sciences, South China Agricultural University

His research focuses on plant genetics, plant reproductive biology, cytoplasmic male sterility and restoration, Genic male sterility, Hybrid sterility, Plant biotechnology/genome editing.

Submission Deadline

The deadline for manuscript submissions is December 31, 2024, but we can accommodate extensions on a case-by-case basis. All papers will be published as open access articles upon acceptance.

Submission Instructions

Please submit the full manuscript to Seed Biology via our online submission system (mc03.manuscriptcentral.com/seedbio). Additionally, please choose a topic of this Special Issue when submitting and mention it in your cover letter. For further inquiries, please contact the Guest Editors：

Liu Yaoguang (ygliu@scau.edu.cn)