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Soil Improvement and Crop Productivity Increase in Sustainable Agriculture: Mechanism and Technology

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Agriculture".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 5 July 2024 | Viewed by 998

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Ming Liu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China
Interests: organic resource utilization; soil improvement; ecological planting
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Jia Liu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Soil and Fertilizer & Resources and Environment Institute, Jiangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nanchang 330200, China
Interests: soil fertility; microbes; production and utilization of green manure crops; acidified soil amelioration and utilization
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Kailou Liu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Jiangxi Institute of Red Soil and Germplasm Resources, Nanchang, China
Interests: soil acidification improvement; crop nutrient management; soil fertility evaluation
Dr. Jiangbing Xu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Applied Meteorology, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, China
Interests: soil microbial community structure; soil c fractions; microbial activity; soil fertility

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

By 2050, the global population is expected to reach 9.3 billion. To meet the needs of this growing population, food production must increase from the current 8.4 billion tons per year to approximately 13.5 billion tons per year. Agriculture is facing unprecedented pressure due to the increasing scarcity of resources such as land, water, and energy, as well as the threats posed by global change. Soil constraints such as acidification, salinization, erosion, nutrient imbalance, poor physical structure, shallow tillage layer, low biological function, decreased water and fertility retention capacity, and soil pollution can easily cause land degradation. Land degradation constrains sustainable agricultural development and food production. Existing soil improvement methods include engineering improvements such as water conservancy projects, agricultural engineering, and water-saving irrigation; agronomic practices such as soil amendment application, organic material return, optimization of tillage and cultivation methods, and planting of high-quality crop varieties; and biotechnology such as organic fertilizer application, bio-tillage, cover crop planting, and diversified cropping. The above soil improvement theories and technologies mainly target changes in soil properties and constraint mitigation. In recent years, the response and feedback of soil, crops and organisms in the soil improvement process have received increasing attention. Due to different natural conditions and economic development levels in different regions, soil improvement technologies are more focused on technical matching and economic efficiency. With the increasing attention paid by society to the ecological environment, environmental friendliness and sustainability are also future trends in the field of soil improvement.

Therefore, this Special Issue aims to explore the impact of soil degradation on sustainable agricultural development and new principles, technologies, and models for soil improvement and crop productivity increase.

For this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

(1) Assessment and key indicators of soil degradation;

(2) Physical, chemical, and biological degradation processes and mechanisms of soil;

(3) Occurrence and hazards of soil pollution, soil-borne disease, etc.;

(4) New principles and technologies for engineering, agronomy, and biological soil improvement;

(5) Application of soil amendments, organic fertilizers, microbial agents, and other products;

(6) Soil–crop–biological interaction in the process of soil improvement;

(7) The impact of diversified cropping and ecological planting on soil health;

(8) The influence of soil improvement on crop yield and quality.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Ming Liu
Dr. Jia Liu
Dr. Kailou Liu
Dr. Jiangbing Xu
Guest Editors

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. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 2400 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

  • land degradation
  • soil improvement
  • soil physical structure
  • soil nutrients
  • soil organisms
  • soil hazardous materials or soil-borne pathogens
  • soil–crop–biological interaction
  • diversified cropping
  • crop productivity
  • sustainable agricultural development

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 3811 KiB  
Article
Roles of Microbial Community and Keystone Taxa in Rice Productivity under Green Manuring in South China
by Yu Feng, Hai Liang, Jun Nie, Yongmei Li and Weidong Cao
Sustainability 2024, 16(9), 3565; https://doi.org/10.3390/su16093565 - 24 Apr 2024
Viewed by 294
Abstract
Green manure (GM)–rice–rice rotation is an important management practice for improving soil fertility and rice productivity. The microbiological mechanisms for the increase in grain yield in GM–rice–rice rotation remain unclear. The responses of soil biodiversity, bacterial and fungal communities, and their interactions in [...] Read more.
Green manure (GM)–rice–rice rotation is an important management practice for improving soil fertility and rice productivity. The microbiological mechanisms for the increase in grain yield in GM–rice–rice rotation remain unclear. The responses of soil biodiversity, bacterial and fungal communities, and their interactions in the GM–rice–rice rotation were investigated based on two long-term field experiments in Gaoqiao (GQ) and Nanxian (NX) in Hunan Province, south China. Results showed that rice yields were raised by 11.79% and 15.03% under GM in GQ and NX, respectively. GM promoted Shannon diversity and Pielou’s evenness and changed the community structures of bacteria and fungi. The co-occurrence network analysis found that the percentages of negative edges were higher in GM (40.79% and 44.32% in GQ and NX, respectively) than those in the corresponding winter fallow (34.86% and 29.13% in GQ and NX, respectively) in the combined bacterial–fungal networks, suggesting more stable microbial community under GM. Moreover, GM had higher percentages of bacterial–fungal and fungal–fungal edges than winter fallow, indicating that GM increased the interaction between bacteria and fungi and fungi play more essential roles in affecting soil processes under GM. The keystone taxa in GM were positively linked with C metabolism-related enzymes and soil multifunctionality, and were important in improving soil fertility and rice productivity. We concluded that the fungal community was more sensitive to GM application than the bacterial community and that keystone taxa had important influences on soil properties and rice productivity in the GM–double-rice cropping system, which can effectively support the sustainable development of the paddy field ecosystem in southern China. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soil Improvement and Crop Productivity Increase in Sustainable Agriculture: Mechanism and Technology)
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14 pages, 1573 KiB  
Article
The Application of Rice Straw with Reduced N Fertilizer Improves the Rice Yield While Decreasing Environmental N Losses in Southern China
by Han Liu, Tingting Ma, Li Wan, Guopeng Zhou, Anfan Zhu, Xiaofen Chen and Jia Liu
Sustainability 2024, 16(7), 2737; https://doi.org/10.3390/su16072737 - 26 Mar 2024
Viewed by 376
Abstract
To investigate the effects of straw residues with reduced nitrogen (N) fertilizer on greenhouse gas (GHG) and N losses in paddy fields, we conducted a field experiment during two growing seasons in paddy rice systems in southern China to evaluate the impacts of [...] Read more.
To investigate the effects of straw residues with reduced nitrogen (N) fertilizer on greenhouse gas (GHG) and N losses in paddy fields, we conducted a field experiment during two growing seasons in paddy rice systems in southern China to evaluate the impacts of the application of straw residues with reduced N fertilizer on rice yield, GHG emissions, and ammonia (NH3) volatilization. The four treatments included N100 (conventional dose of N fertilizer), SN100 (conventional dose of N fertilizer + straw), N60 (60% of the conventional dose of N fertilizer), and SN60 (60% of the conventional dose of N fertilizer + straw). We found that the yield of the SN60 treatment was slightly reduced, but the partial factor productivity of applied N (PFPN) was significantly increased by 63.9% compared to the N100 treatment. At the same N application rate, the application of straw increased soil organic C (SOC), methane (CH4) emissions, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, global warming potential (GWP), greenhouse gas intensity (GHGI), and net ecosystem carbon budget (NECB), but significantly decreased soil N2O emissions and NH3 volatilization. Compared with conventional fertilization (N100), straw residues with reduced N fertilization (SN60) reduced N2O emissions and NH3 volatilization by 42.1% and 23.9%, and increased GHGI and NECB by 11.1% and 18.3%, respectively. The results indicate that straw residues with reduced N fertilizer are a feasible strategy to reduce N losses in paddy fields while increasing carbon sequestration. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soil Improvement and Crop Productivity Increase in Sustainable Agriculture: Mechanism and Technology)
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