Sustainable Precision Agriculture: Latest Advances and Prospects

Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, we have observed a significant increase in the management of agricultural practices through precision agriculture strategies. On-farm applications include varying intensities and modes depending on farm size, crop choice, and livestock, with technologies ranging from the simplest guidance assistance to site-specific management. The public policies of nations have also favored the spread of 4.0 machines able to perform agricultural procedures based on information coming from the field, such as soils and crops.

Research is constantly evolving with experimental activities concerning technologies and the interaction between them, the soil, the crop, and humans. Interest is aroused by the investigation of the effect on the environmental, economic, and social sustainability of the techniques and technologies used by precision agriculture.

Therefore, this Special Issue is mainly aimed at collecting manuscripts on the latest advances in precision agriculture with a focus on their positive effect on sustainability, agrochemicals, and fuel reduction for improved future scenarios.

This Special Issue welcomes original articles, research, research reflections, and reviews concerning strategic items. It focuses on the application of innovative precision agriculture strategies, in particular (i) the study and the use of agricultural practices managed according to soil and crop variability; (ii) the study of precision livestock farming—PLF; (iii) the research of the processing methods and algorithms helpful for supporting site-specific management; (iv) all evaluations of the transfer processes of elaboration by humans to agricultural machinery 4.0, including the Farm Machinery Management Information Systems (FMMIS) platforms. Researchers are encouraged to send their valuable contributions.

The topic also includes manuscripts related to issues that highlight the difficulties in the deployment of precision agriculture, which also involve critical points in information or technology management. The common thread of the Special Issue is sustainability, so we invite a critical evaluation of the effect of one's research toward sustainability from environmental, economic, or social points of view or even all three aspects simultaneously.

Research areas aimed at improving sustainability may include (but are not limited to) the following:

- Precision Agriculture (PA) strategies;

- Precision Livestock Farming (PLF) strategies;

- Variable Rate Technology (VRT) and techniques;

- Remote Sensing (RS);

- Algorithms to prepare prescription maps;

- Human–machine information transfer;

- Critical points in Precision Agriculture management;

- Crop condition monitoring (spectral indices and application);

- Plant disease detection at different scales (proximal sensors, drones, satellites);

- AI (Artificial Intelligence)-based methods and techniques as well as Machine and deep learning;

- Plant phenotyping;

- Robotics and automation;

- Decision Support System (DSS);

- Multi-temporal analysis;

- Life Cycle Assessment (LCA);

- Farm Machinery Management Information Systems (FMMIS).

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Elio Romano
Dr. Carlo Bisaglia
Dr. Andrea Bragaglio
Prof. Giampaolo Schillaci
Dr. Sabina Iole Giuseppina Failla
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.

• precision agriculture
• remote and proximal sensing
• sustainability
• impact reduction
• awareness of variability
• customized management