Sustainability of Tropical and Subtropical Crops in a Changing Environment

Dear Colleagues,

Natural products and fruits from tropical and subtropical crops are widely used and consumed worldwide. In recent years, consumer demands for tropical and subtropical products have increased, leading to crop intensification, which involves the use of more resources per cultivation area, and to their expansion to new cropping regions. Consequently, tropical crops can be subjected to natural resource limitations and great disease incidence, which can be aggravated by the climatic change impact on specific tropical and subtropical areas, compromising their sustainability and increasing the risk of environmental breakdown.

The development of new, better-adapted cultivars and the adoption of new environmentally friendly techniques, and optimized crop management practices for increasing crop resource-use efficiency in a changing environment have been identified as possible solutions to ensure the food and environmental sustainability of tropical and subtropical crops.

In this Special Issue, we would like to bring together the most recent research on tropical and subtropical crops (avocado, mango, banana, persimmon, cocoa, papaya, citrus etc.) focusing on strategies and solutions to improve crop resource use efficiency and to safeguard tropical crops’ feasibility, while maintaining profitability under contrasting conditions. We welcome research articles, reviews, and opinion articles dealing with any of these topics:

• Crop management practices, including studies dealing with plant density, soil management, fertigation, irrigation, canopy and crop load management, weed and pest control, cover crops, mulching, etc.;
• Identification and use of genotypes (cultivars and rootstocks) tolerant to abiotic and biotic stresses, as well as associated molecular and physiological mechanisms;
• Use of alternative fertilizers (e.g., compost, biochar) or nonconventional water resources (e.g., saline, reclaimed water) for crop production;
• New cropping systems and intelligent tools for integrative crop management and for optimizing resource productivity, biodiversity, and soil health;
• Tropical and subtropical crop’s performance and ecophysiological response under climatic change scenarios.

Dr. Elsa Martinez Ferri
Dr. Clara Pliego
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. 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.

• resistant crops
• tolerant crops
• abiotic stress
• biotic stress
• crop management

• Sustainability of Tropical Crops in a Changing Environment in Agronomy (4 articles)