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Agronomy
Special Issues
Soil Health in Agroecosystems
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Soil Health in Agroecosystems

A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Soil and Plant Nutrition".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 July 2019) | Viewed by 30046

Special Issue Editors

Dr. María Bonita Villamil

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Crop Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
Interests: agronomy; sustainability; soil health; microbiome; cover crops; statistics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. María Celina Zabaloy

E-Mail Website
Co-Guest Editor
Microbial Ecology Laboratory, Departamento de Agronomía (UNS), Centro de Recursos Naturales Renovables de la Zona Semiárida (CERZOS), Bahía Blanca 8000, Argentina
Interests: soil microbiology; microbial ecology; soil biochemistry; soil ecotoxicology; plant-microbe interaction; microbiomes; organic fertilization; cover crops
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Soil health is the continued capacity of a soil to sustain biological productivity, maintain environmental quality, and promote plant and animal health. Deterioration of soil health is a global concern with massive amounts of fertile agricultural land lost every year to erosion, flooding, mining, urban development, and intensive agricultural use. With the world’s population growing steadily, this annual reduction of the land suitable for food production poses a significant threat to food security worldwide. Thus, preserving our agricultural soils should be of the highest importance to human welfare. Soil health characterization and assessment within agricultural settings is an agro-ecological approach to improve our understanding of the status and impacts of management practices. Results from these assessments are essential to develop decision tools and policies to achieve sustainable and profitable intensification of agricultural systems.

This Special Issue intends to cover recent research into different aspects related to the assessment and understanding of soil health in a wide range of agro-ecosystems.

Dr. María Bonita Villamil
Dr. María Celina Zabaloy
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Agronomy is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • soil health
  • soil quality
  • soil properties
  • soil metagenomics
  • soil biology
  • agricultural soils
  • soil productivity
  • sustainable agriculture

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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16 pages, 1509 KiB  
Article
Long-Term N Fertilization Decreased Diversity and Altered the Composition of Soil Bacterial and Archaeal Communities
by Renpeng Sun, Pan Zhang, Chance W. Riggins, María C. Zabaloy, Sandra Rodríguez-Zas and María B. Villamil
Agronomy 2019, 9(10), 574; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy9100574 - 23 Sep 2019
Cited by 21 | Viewed by 3303
Abstract
Soil microbial communities are essential in the cycling of nutrients that affect crop production. Our goal was to characterize the microbial community structure following 34 years of nitrogen (N) fertilization treatments in continuous maize production in highly fertile soils. Using 16S rRNA gene-based [...] Read more.
Soil microbial communities are essential in the cycling of nutrients that affect crop production. Our goal was to characterize the microbial community structure following 34 years of nitrogen (N) fertilization treatments in continuous maize production in highly fertile soils. Using 16S rRNA gene-based analysis of the V4 region via Illumina HiSeq2500 technology with downstream bioinformatics processing and analysis with QIIME 2.0, we aimed to characterize the prokaryotic communities under three increasing N fertilization rates. Factor analyses indicated that a high N level decreased the diversity of soil bacterial and archaeal communities and altered the relative abundance (RA) of the dominant (>1% RA) and minor (<1% RA) phyla. Among the 12 major phyla, we determined increases in Gemmatimonadetes, Proteobacteria, and Euryarchaeota, accompanied by reductions in Cyanobacteria, Chloroflexi, Firmicutes, and Planctomycetes with increasing N. Within the 29 minor phyla, N fertilization led to increases in Aquificae, WPS2, Parvarchaeota, AD3, FCPU426, Armatimonadetes, TM7, Chlamydiae, and OD1, along with reductions of Nitrospirae, WS3, Tenericutes, Lentisphaerae, OP3, Synergistetes, Thermotogae, and prokaryotes that could not be reliably assigned to a phylum (classified as Other). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soil Health in Agroecosystems)
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14 pages, 1260 KiB  
Article
Stacking Agricultural Management Tactics to Promote Improvements in Soil Structure and Microbial Activities
by R. Michael Lehman, Shannon L. Osborne and Kimberly McGraw
Agronomy 2019, 9(9), 539; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy9090539 - 12 Sep 2019
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 6733
Abstract
Linking agricultural management tactics to quantifiable changes in soil health-related properties is a key objective for increasing adoption of the most favorable management practices. We used two long-term, no-till cropping studies to illustrate the variable patterns of response of soil structure indices and [...] Read more.
Linking agricultural management tactics to quantifiable changes in soil health-related properties is a key objective for increasing adoption of the most favorable management practices. We used two long-term, no-till cropping studies to illustrate the variable patterns of response of soil structure indices and microbial activity to additional management tactics, including crop rotational diversity, residue management and cover cropping. We found that observable effects of management tactics on soil properties were often dependent on the current crop phase sampled, even though the treatments were well-established. In some cases, a single additional management tactic produced a response, two tactics each produced a response and sometimes there were interactions between tactics. However, importantly, we never observed a negative effect for any of the response variables when stacking soil health building practices in no-till cropping systems. The collective results from the two field studies illustrate that soil health improvements with stacking management tactics are not always simply additive and are affected by temporal relationships inherent to the treatments. We conclude that the implementation of multiple positive management tactics increases the likelihood that improvements in soil properties can be documented with one or more of the proxy measures for soil health. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soil Health in Agroecosystems)
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19 pages, 3875 KiB  
Article
Response of Microbial Activities in Soil to Various Organic and Mineral Amendments as an Indicator of Soil Quality
by Jakub Elbl, Jana Maková, Soňa Javoreková, Juraj Medo, Antonín Kintl, Tomáš Lošák and Vojtěch Lukas
Agronomy 2019, 9(9), 485; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy9090485 - 27 Aug 2019
Cited by 20 | Viewed by 3110
Abstract
The presented paper deals with the analysis of potential differences between organic waste compost (CBD), vermicompost (CVER) and mineral fertilizer (MF; 27% of N) applications affecting the quality of arable soil by influencing microbial activity therein. The selected types [...] Read more.
The presented paper deals with the analysis of potential differences between organic waste compost (CBD), vermicompost (CVER) and mineral fertilizer (MF; 27% of N) applications affecting the quality of arable soil by influencing microbial activity therein. The selected types of compost represent alternatives to conventional organic fertilizers, which are, however, not available to Czech and Slovak farmers in sufficient amounts. Their mutual comparison and the comparison with organic fertilizers aim to provide farmers further information about their influence on arable land and thus to give them the possibility of deciding on the most suitable amendments. To demonstrate the effect of these amendments, six variants were prepared: one without the addition of fertilizers; two variants with the addition of 40 Mg/ha of CVER and CBD; one variant with the addition of double dosed CVER (80 Mg/ha), and the remaining two variants were fertilized only with MF (0.22 Mg/ha) and with the combination of CVER (0.20 Mg/ha) and MF (0.11 Mg/ha). Substrate induced respiration (SIR), basal respiration (BS), microbial carbon (Cmic) and enzymatic activities (hydrolysis of fluorescein diacetate—FDA, dehydrogenase activity—DHA, and phosphatase activity—PA) were used to evaluate the effect of CBD, CVER and MF application on the soil quality. Both organic and mineral amendments affected BS and SIR. The highest BS and SIR rates were found in variants with compost application (CVER and CBD). All variants treated with the mineral fertilizer showed the lowest level of enzyme activities; lower by about 30% in comparison with variants where CVER, CBD and the combination of MF and CVER were applied. We found insignificant differences between the individual types of compost. More importantly, we compared the situation at the beginning of the experiment and after its end. It was found that the application of mineral fertilizers automatically led to the deterioration of all enzymatic parameters, on average by more than 25%, as compared with the situation at the beginning of the experiment. However, when the mineral fertilizer dose was supplemented with organic amendments (CVER), this negative effect was eliminated or significantly reduced. Furthermore, both composts (CVER and CBD) positively affected plant biomass production, which reached a level of production enhanced by the MF. Results clearly showed that the application of both compost types could be used to improve soil quality in agriculture. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soil Health in Agroecosystems)
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21 pages, 6133 KiB  
Article
Bioenergy from Periodically Waterlogged Cropland in Europe: A First Assessment of the Potential of Five Perennial Energy Crops to Provide Biomass and Their Interactions with Soil
by Thorsten Ruf, Varentta Audu, Katja Holzhauser and Christoph Emmerling
Agronomy 2019, 9(7), 374; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy9070374 - 12 Jul 2019
Cited by 20 | Viewed by 2876
Abstract
Harvesting of silage maize in late autumn on waterlogged soils may result in several ecological problems such as soil compaction and may subsequently be a major threat to soil fertility in Europe. It was hypothesized that perennial energy crops might reduce the vulnerability [...] Read more.
Harvesting of silage maize in late autumn on waterlogged soils may result in several ecological problems such as soil compaction and may subsequently be a major threat to soil fertility in Europe. It was hypothesized that perennial energy crops might reduce the vulnerability for soil compaction through earlier harvest dates and improved soil stability. However, the performance of such crops to be grown on soil that are periodically waterlogged and implications for soil chemical and microbial properties are currently an open issue. Within the framework of a two-year pot experiment we investigated the potential of the cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum L.), Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus), giant knotweed (Fallopia japonicum × bohemica), tall wheatgrass (Agropyron elongatum), and reed canary grass (Phalaris arundinacea) for cultivation under periodically waterlogged soil conditions during the winter half year and implications for soil chemical and biological properties. Examined perennial energy crops coped with periodical waterlogging and showed yields 50% to 150% higher than in the control which was never faced with waterlogging. Root formation was similar in waterlogged and non-waterlogged soil layers. Soil chemical and microbial properties clearly responded to different soil moisture treatments. For example, dehydrogenase activity was two to four times higher in the periodically waterlogged treatment compared to the control. Despite waterlogging, aerobic microbial activity was significantly elevated indicating morphological and metabolic adaptation of the perennial crops to withstand waterlogged conditions. Thus, our results reveal first evidence of a site-adapted biomass production on periodical waterlogged soils through the cultivation of perennial energy crops and for intense plant microbe interactions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soil Health in Agroecosystems)
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Review

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23 pages, 426 KiB  
Review
Potential Benefits and Risks for Soil Health Derived From the Use of Organic Amendments in Agriculture
by Julen Urra, Itziar Alkorta and Carlos Garbisu
Agronomy 2019, 9(9), 542; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy9090542 - 12 Sep 2019
Cited by 114 | Viewed by 13255
Abstract
The use of organic amendments in agriculture is a common practice due to their potential to increase crop productivity and enhance soil health. Indeed, organic amendments of different origin and composition (e.g., animal slurry, manure, compost, sewage sludge, etc.) can supply valuable nutrients [...] Read more.
The use of organic amendments in agriculture is a common practice due to their potential to increase crop productivity and enhance soil health. Indeed, organic amendments of different origin and composition (e.g., animal slurry, manure, compost, sewage sludge, etc.) can supply valuable nutrients to the soil, as well as increase its organic matter content, with concomitant benefits for soil health. However, the application of organic amendments to agricultural soil entails a variety of risks for environmental and human health. Organic amendments often contain a range of pollutants, including heavy metals, persistent organic pollutants, potential human pathogens, and emerging pollutants. Regarding emerging pollutants, the presence of antibiotic residues, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and antibiotic-resistance genes in agricultural amendments is currently a matter of much concern, due to the concomitant risks for human health. Similarly, currently, the introduction of microplastics to agricultural soil, via the application of organic amendments (mainly, sewage sludge), is a topic of much relevance, owing to its magnitude and potential adverse effects for environmental health. There is, currently, much interest in the development of efficient strategies to mitigate the risks associated to the application of organic amendments to agricultural soil, while benefiting from their numerous advantages. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soil Health in Agroecosystems)
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