Genomic Innovations for Fruit Crop Improvement: From Functional Insights to Applied Breeding

Fruit crop improvement is a pivotal area in agricultural science, directly influencing food security, economic development, and nutritional health worldwide. In the face of intensifying climate change and emerging environmental stressors, fruit crops are increasingly vulnerable to yield instability and declines in quality. Despite significant progress in genomics—such as high-throughput sequencing, advanced genome editing, and comprehensive epigenetic analyses—gaps remain in the translation of these discoveries to tangible gains in breeding practices. The field continues to debate effective strategies for utilizing multi-omics data, unraveling complex trait genetics, and integrating novel tools into breeding protocols. Although landmark studies have mapped and characterized critical genes for yield and stress resilience and described regulatory pathways underlying fruit quality, the practical application of this knowledge to generate improved cultivars is still limited by biological complexity and technological constraints.This Research Topic aims to bridge the gap between functional genomics and applied breeding in fruit crops. It seeks to showcase leading-edge research that not only elucidates the genetic and molecular basis of important traits, but also demonstrates how these findings can be translated to create novel, more resilient, and higher-quality fruit crop cultivars. The overarching objective is to foster innovation in breeding strategies by integrating genomic knowledge with modern phenotyping and functional validation approaches.The scope of this Research Topic includes both discovery-oriented and applied studies in fruit crop genomics and breeding, with emphasis on experimentally validated or translational work. Studies should demonstrate clear links between genomics and functional validation or breeding relevance to align with the focus of this Special Issue. To gather further insights in this field, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:• Functional genomics: gene discovery, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and epigenetic regulation in fruit crops • Applied breeding: GWAS, QTL mapping, marker-assisted selection, genomic selection, and genome editing approaches • Stress and disease biology: genomic insights into abiotic stress tolerance, host–pathogen interactions, and breeding for resilience • Emerging approaches: pangenomics, multi-omics integration, and high-throughput phenotyping for trait dissection and selection • Translational strategies: bridging genomics and field performance, and advancing pipelines from genotype to cultivar development We invite original research articles, reviews, perspectives, and opinion pieces relevant to the themes outlined above. Topic editors: Dora Wang, Selman Uluisik, Kwon Kyoo Kang Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/80685/genomic-innovations-for-fruit-crop-improvement-from-functional-insights-to-applied-breeding