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Sustainable Mechanisms for Crop Development, Productivity and Quality Promotion
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Sustainable Mechanisms for Crop Development, Productivity and Quality Promotion

A special issue of Plants (ISSN 2223-7747). This special issue belongs to the section "Crop Physiology and Crop Production".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 April 2025 | Viewed by 3951

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Kęstutis Romaneckas

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Agroecosystems and Soi Sciences, Agriculture Academy, Vytautas Magnus University, LT-53361 Akademija, Kaunas reg., Lithuania
Interests: more sustainable tillage and sowing systems; field crop management; crop production; quality and safety; inter-cropping; multi-cropping; soil properties and GHG emissions; weed and pest management; organic and precision farming; biomass producing for biofuel processing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Modern intensive unbalanced agriculture initiates physical, chemical, and biological soil degradation, decreases in soil and crop biodiversity, pests and weeds developing resistance to pesticides, increases in GHG emissions and energy consumption, and risks of food pollutions. Environmentally friendly and energy-efficient farming technologies are being integrated into agricultural production systems with the greatest economic, energy, and environmental benefits. There are several sustainable ways prevent problems and warrant successful crop growth, productivity, and quality development: balance fertilizers and/or pesticides, new generation crop varieties and seed treatments, and more sustainable and precise ploughless tillage and seedbed preparation technologies.

In addition, this Special Issue will present investigations on new-generation organic or nano-organic, bio-organic, bacteria-inoculated fertilizers and bio-preparations for primary and additional fertilization, bio-pesticides, combinations of mechanical, physical, and biological control of harmful organisms, and crop functionality increase by cover-cropping, inter-cropping, and multi-cropping. Research data on technologies economy, energy, and environmental impact are also welcome.

Prof. Dr. Kęstutis Romaneckas
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. Plants 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 2700 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

  • sustainable agrotechnologies
  • crops development and yields
  • quality formation and assessment

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

17 pages, 340 KiB  
Article
Planting Geometry May Be Used to Optimize Plant Density and Yields without Changing Yield Potential per Plant in Sweet Corn
by Atom Atanasio Ladu Stansluos, Ali Öztürk, Aras Türkoğlu, Magdalena Piekutowska and Gniewko Niedbała
Plants 2024, 13(17), 2465; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants13172465 - 3 Sep 2024
Viewed by 580
Abstract
Planting geometry is one of the most important management practices that determine plant growth and yield of corn. The effects of eight planting geometries (35 × 23 cm, 40 × 21 cm, 45 × 19 cm, 50 × 18 cm, 55 × 17 [...] Read more.
Planting geometry is one of the most important management practices that determine plant growth and yield of corn. The effects of eight planting geometries (35 × 23 cm, 40 × 21 cm, 45 × 19 cm, 50 × 18 cm, 55 × 17 cm, 60 × 16 cm, 65 × 15 cm, 70 × 15 cm) on plant growth and yields of three sweet corn hybrids (Argos F1, Challenger F1, Khan F1) were investigated under Erzurum, Türkiye conditions in 2022 and 2023 years. Variance analysis of the main factors shows a highly significant effect on whole traits but in two-way interactions some of the traits were significant and in the three-way interactions, it was insignificant. As an average of years, the number of plants per hectare at the harvest varied between 92,307 (35 × 23 cm) and 120,444 (70 × 15 cm) according to the planting geometries. The highest marketable ear number per hectare (107,456), marketable ear yield (24,887 kg ha−1), and fresh kernel yield (19,493 kg ha−1) were obtained from the 40 × 21 cm planting geometry. The results showed that the variety Khan F1 grown at 40 × 21 cm planting geometry obtained the highest marketable ear number (112,472), marketable ear yield (29,788 kg ha−1), and fresh kernel yield (22,432 kg ha−1). The plant density was positively correlated with marketable ear number (r = 0.904 **), marketable ear yield (r = 0.853 **), and fresh kernel yield (r = 0.801 **). The differences among the varieties were significant for the studied traits, except for plant density and kernel number per ear. In conclusion, the variety Khan F1 should be grown at the 40 × 21 cm planting geometry to maximize yields under study area conditions without water and nutrient limitations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Mechanisms for Crop Development, Productivity and Quality Promotion)
14 pages, 2959 KiB  
Article
Comprehensive Assessment of the Effect of Multi-Cropping on Agroecosystems
by Jovita Balandaitė, Kęstutis Romaneckas, Rasa Kimbirauskienė and Aušra Sinkevičienė
Plants 2024, 13(10), 1372; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants13101372 - 15 May 2024
Viewed by 733
Abstract
Multi-cropping is becoming an increasingly popular technique in agriculture to tackle major and complex agroecosystem problems such as biodiversity and soil fertility loss, erosion and degradation, increased greenhouse gas emissions, etc. Comprehensively assessing the impact of multi-cropping intensity on agroecosystems is a new [...] Read more.
Multi-cropping is becoming an increasingly popular technique in agriculture to tackle major and complex agroecosystem problems such as biodiversity and soil fertility loss, erosion and degradation, increased greenhouse gas emissions, etc. Comprehensively assessing the impact of multi-cropping intensity on agroecosystems is a new and still under-researched approach that can provide a better understanding of the impact of individual indicators on the overall functioning of biodiverse agroecosystems. Data from a stationary field experiment using multi-cropping at the Vytautas Magnus University Experimental Station between 2020 and 2022 were used to carry out this study. The study included maize, hemp, and faba bean as single, binary, and ternary crops. A complex assessment approach (CEI value) was used to determine the impact of these crops on the agroecosystem, the interrelationships between the main indicators, and the strength of their effects. It was found that the ternary maize–hemp–faba bean crop had the most positive effect on the agroecosystem. The effectiveness of other crops was 2 to 35% less. The lowest value was calculated for the maize–faba bean crop. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Mechanisms for Crop Development, Productivity and Quality Promotion)
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21 pages, 3482 KiB  
Article
Evaluation of the Productivity and Potential Utilization of Artemisia dubia Plant Biomass for Energy Conversion
by Algirdas Jasinskas, Gintaras Šiaudinis, Danutė Karčauskienė, Renata-Marks Bielska, Marek Marks, Stanislaw Bielski, Ramūnas Mieldažys, Kęstutis Romaneckas and Egidijus Šarauskis
Plants 2024, 13(8), 1158; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants13081158 - 22 Apr 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1143
Abstract
Field studies with the large-stemmed plant Artemisia dubia (A. dubia) have been carried out at the Vėžaičiai Branch of LAMMC since 2018. According to three years of experimental results, annual dry matter (DM) yield varied from 7.94 to 10.14 t ha [...] Read more.
Field studies with the large-stemmed plant Artemisia dubia (A. dubia) have been carried out at the Vėžaičiai Branch of LAMMC since 2018. According to three years of experimental results, annual dry matter (DM) yield varied from 7.94 to 10.14 t ha−1. Growing conditions, nitrogen application level, and harvesting time had statistically significant impacts on A. dubia productivity. The most important tasks of this article were to investigate and determine the factors influencing A. dubia plant biomass productivity and the evaluation of technological, power, and environmental parameters of plant biomass utilization for energy conversion and the production of high-quality solid biofuel pellets. For the experiments, six variants of A. dubia samples were used, which were grown in 2021. Plants were cut three times and two fertilization options were used: (1) no fertilization and (2) fertilization with 180 kg ha−1 of nitrogen fertilizer. These harvested plants were chopped, milled, and pressed into pellets. The physical–mechanical characteristics (moisture content, density, and strength) of the A. dubia pellets were investigated. During this study, it was found that the density in the dry mass (DM) of the pellets ranged from 1119.86 to 1192.44 kg m−3. The pellet moisture content ranged from 8.80 to 10.49%. After testing pellet strength, it was found that the pellets which were made from plant biomass PK-1-1 (first harvest without N fertilization) were the most resistant to compression, and they withstood 560.36 N of pressure. The dry fuel lower heating value (LHV) of the pellets was sufficiently high and was very close to that of the pine sawdust pellets; it varied from 17.46 ± 0.25 MJ kg−1 to 18.14 ± 0.28 MJ kg−1. The ash content of the burned pellets ranged from 3.62 ± 0.02% to 6.47 ± 0.09%. Emissions of harmful pollutants—CO2, CO, NOx, and unburnt hydrocarbons (CxHy)—did not exceed the maximum permissible levels. Summarizing the results for the investigated properties of the combustion and emissions of the A. dubia pellets, it can be concluded that this biofuel can be used for the production of pressed biofuel, and it is characterized by sufficiently high quality, efficient combustion, and permissible emissions to the environment. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Mechanisms for Crop Development, Productivity and Quality Promotion)
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16 pages, 1803 KiB  
Article
The Complex Effect of Different Tillage Systems on the Faba Bean Agroecosystem
by Rasa Kimbirauskienė, Aušra Sinkevičienė, Austėja Švereikaitė and Kęstutis Romaneckas
Plants 2024, 13(4), 513; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants13040513 - 13 Feb 2024
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 933
Abstract
The interactions of the different factors in differently tilled faba bean agroecosystems are still insufficiently studied and evaluated. For these reasons, we studied the results of a long-term field experiment, which was carried out in the Research Station of Vytautas Magnus University, Agriculture [...] Read more.
The interactions of the different factors in differently tilled faba bean agroecosystems are still insufficiently studied and evaluated. For these reasons, we studied the results of a long-term field experiment, which was carried out in the Research Station of Vytautas Magnus University, Agriculture Academy (Lithuania). The aim of this study is to comprehensively evaluate the effect of the deep ploughing (DP), shallow ploughing (SP), deep cultivation, chiseling (DC), shallow cultivation-disking (SC), and no-tillage (NT) systems for the faba bean agroecosystem on the complex interactions of the indices, the relations among the indices, and the strength of the impact; the study employs the integrated evaluation method, which uses the complex evaluation index (CEI). CEI values showed that the NT system had a greater effect on the increase of soil aggregate stability (61%), the decrease of CO2 emissions (12%), and the increase of seed yield (6%) than the DP system. However, the NT system had 36% and 20% higher effect on weed density and biomass increase than DP. CEI values of the DP system were often minimal, i.e., close to 1, which showed the DP system’s ineffectiveness. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Mechanisms for Crop Development, Productivity and Quality Promotion)
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