Winter Survival of Herbaceous Crops under Climate Change: From Mechanism to Breeding

Climate change is reshaping winter conditions for herbaceous crops in complex and often unpredictable ways. Although mean global temperatures are rising, this is frequently accompanied by more variable winters punctuated by erratic and extreme temperature swings that pose an even greater risk of freeze damage. A warmer-than-normal autumn can delay cold acclimation; fluctuating temperatures during winter or early spring may promote premature de-acclimation and regrowth, leaving plants vulnerable to subsequent frost. This vulnerability is not confined to midwinter: late-autumn or early-spring freezes can injure plants that are still actively growing or have begun to de-acclimate. Reduced or unstable snow cover can further increase the risk of freezing injury, dehydration, photooxidative stress, ice encasement, and repetitive freeze-thaw cycles — the latter also perturbing the rhizosphere. Combined with soil drought and harsh winds, the loss of snow cover can drive winter desiccation. The net result is that overwintering herbaceous crops are increasingly injured by frost events.

This Research Topic focuses on the physiological, biochemical, molecular, and genetic mechanisms that determine how herbaceous crops acquire, maintain, and lose the ability to survive changing winter environments — and how this knowledge can be translated into crop improvement. We are particularly interested in the dynamics of winter hardiness across the full season, and in linking mechanistic understanding to breeding for improved winter survival and resilience under future climates.

We welcome contributions on overwintering herbaceous crops — including winter cereals, forage grasses and legumes, turfgrass, winter oilseed rape, and other autumn-sown or perennial herbaceous species — addressing topics including, but not limited to:

• Signalling and protection pathways of cold acclimation, de-acclimation, and re-acclimation
• Genetic basis of hardiness maintenance, dehardening thresholds, stress memory, and de-acclimation resistance
• Mechanisms of injury and protection under freeze-thaw cycling, snow-cover loss, winter desiccation, and ice encasement
• Post-winter recovery and regrowth following frost or dehardening events
• Phenotyping methods and prediction or modelling of winter hardiness under future climate scenarios
• Selection strategies and breeding targets for improved overwintering stability

Mechanistic studies in model species are welcome where the findings translate to overwintering herbaceous crops. We prioritise studies that advance mechanistic or genetic understanding of the responses observed, rather than purely descriptive treatment-response, omics-inventory, or phylogenetic reports. We welcome Original Research, Reviews, Mini-Reviews, Hypothesis and Theory, Perspectives, and Methods.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Review
• Systematic Review

Keywords: Winterhardiness, winter survival, climate change, cold acclimation, de-acclimation, freezing injury, dehydration, dessication, photooxidative stress, freezing tolerance, herbaceous crops, crop improvement, breeding targets

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.