Dear Colleagues,

It has been widely assessed that the increase in the world’s population, which is predicted to reach nine billion people by 2050, requires that agriculture maintain and/or enhance its productivity potential to meet the global demand of food. Up to now, this objective has been fulfilled by progressively increasing the input of external fertilizers; however, in the last few decades, fertilizer inputs did not enhanced crop yield proportionally, but posed serious threat for the environment. The overcoming of this issue necessarily requires the improvements in nutrients-use efficiency of crops, which can be achieved by deeply understanding and, afterwards, exploiting the intrinsic biological potential of rhizosphere processes.

The rhizosphere is commonly used to describe the volume of soil influenced by root biological activities and it represents a complex and highly-dynamic environment where a vast number of interactions, between roots, minerals, organic compounds, solutes, gases, and microorganisms, determine the biogeochemical cycling of elements. In spite of its pivotal importance, rhizosphere research faces several challenges, mainly related to i) the study of root activities under field conditions, ii) the correlation of the root activities with the physical-chemical alterations of both rhizosphere soil and microbiome, iii) the understanding of the molecular mechanisms underpinning root exudation and nutrients uptake, and iv) modelling acquired knowledge to develop strategies to manage the rhizosphere, aimed at improving agriculture productivity and sustainability.

On these bases, the main aim of this Special Issue, “Rhizosphere Research in Agriculture”, is to bring together the more up-to-date pieces of knowledge concerning: i) the relationships established between plants, soil, and microorganisms in the rhizosphere, ii) the molecular/biochemical mechanisms underlying the release of root exudates and the acquisition of nutrients, and iii) innovative tools and methods for rhizosphere research.

Dr. Youry Pii
Guest Editor

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• Rhizosphere
• Rhizosphere Microbiome
• Plant Growth Promotion
• Nutrients Dynamics
• Nutrient Uptake
• Rhizodeposition
• Root Exudates