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Sustainable Soil Management and Crop Production Research
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Sustainable Soil Management and Crop Production Research

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Soil Conservation and Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (26 April 2024) | Viewed by 14840

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Ioannis Roussis

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Laboratory of Agronomy, Department of Crop Science, Agricultural University of Athens, 11855 Athens, Greece
Interests: agronomy; crop science; organic agriculture; fertilization; weeds; tillage; feed crops; alternative crops; industrial crops; sustainable agriculture; medicinal plants
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Ioanna Kakabouki

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Laboratory of Agronomy, Department of Crop Science, Agricultural University of Athens, 11855 Athens, Greece
Interests: fertilization; organic agriculture; weed management; tillage; novel crops
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Soil provides crop plants with the essential nutrients, water, and root support they require to grow and thrive. There are a number of factors that affect soil quality, including climatic conditions, time, living organisms, and, especially, the human management of soil. The soil condition determines the effectiveness of any crop. The use of mineral fertilizers and plant protection products has steadily increased over the last century, adversely impacting soil conditions and the environment. The inefficient use of nutrients in fertilizers has resulted in the migration of harmful compounds. Intensive cultivation and the use of mineral fertilizers have adversely affected biodiversity, resulting in significantly reduced physical and chemical properties in the soil. Thus, the problem of environmental pollution has become global.

In this regard, agriculture has a significant impact on natural resources, which could adversely affect environmental protection and result in the degradation of agricultural lands. In response to this situation, a heated debate has emerged over the need for better fertilizer management and more sustainable soil nutrient use, highlighting the importance of integrating methods and practices designed to achieve adequate plant nutrition and productivity. New agricultural practices, fertilization methods, amendments, and plant nutrition sources, along with the use of bacteria and fungi to enhance nutrient utilization by crops, all provide interesting and sustainable solutions for maintaining soil life, improving fertility, and feeding plants in order to promote sustainable agricultural production. In addition, the use of new and/or existing sources of fertilizers and soil improvers, either directly (direct input into the soil) or indirectly (physicochemical transformation), is beneficial to minimize contamination and environmental impacts. For this reason, understanding nutrient reactions and processes in soils (soil fertility), as well as managing inorganic and organic nutrient input efficiently (nutrient management), is essential to maximizing nutrient supply to crops and minimizing environmental risk.

This Special Issue, entitled “Sustainable Soil Management and Crop Production Research”, focuses on recent scientific progress and innovation in agriculture regarding the evaluation of the spatial–temporal variability of nutrients for precise prescription, the assessment of crop responses to nutrient application, the development of integrated nutrient management (INM) strategies for sustaining soil health and crop productivity and quality, the improvement in nutrient use efficiency (NUE), the establishment of critical limits for nutrients under different soil–crop conditions for revising nutrients recommendations, and the development of best management practices (BMPs) for nutrients under various soil–crop conditions. We welcome original papers, reviews, and opinion papers that enhance our understanding of the above-mentioned topics.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Ioannis Roussis
Dr. Ioanna Kakabouki
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

  • soil quality
  • soil fertility
  • organic carbon
  • plant nutrition
  • integrated nutrient management
  • nutrient interactions
  • nutrient use efficiency
  • sustainable agriculture
  • no-tillage agriculture
  • biostimulants
  • organic fertilizers and biofertilizers
  • plant-growth-promoting rhizobacteria
  • crop residues
  • compost

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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13 pages, 443 KiB  
Article
Sweet Pepper Farming Strategies in Response to Climate Change: Enhancing Yield and Shelf Life through Planting Time and Cultivar Selection
by Iqra Zakir, Shakeel Ahmad, Sakeena Tul-Ain Haider, Talaat Ahmed, Sajjad Hussain, Muhammad Shahzad Saleem and Muhammad Fasih Khalid
Sustainability 2024, 16(15), 6338; https://doi.org/10.3390/su16156338 - 24 Jul 2024
Viewed by 371
Abstract
Climate change is an important concern worldwide. This huge change is causing a negative impact on crop productivity throughout the whole world and shows some drastic effects on sensitive crops including sweet pepper and other kinds of chilies. These stresses have a negative [...] Read more.
Climate change is an important concern worldwide. This huge change is causing a negative impact on crop productivity throughout the whole world and shows some drastic effects on sensitive crops including sweet pepper and other kinds of chilies. These stresses have a negative effect on vegetable growth, fruit quality, and fruit yield. Besides these stresses, accurate planting time is the utmost factor in increasing the crop potential and its productivity. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the optimal planting date and best-performing cultivar for sweet pepper to maximize crop productivity, growth, yield, and fruit shelf life under the impacts of climate change. The experiment was conducted in Multan, Pakistan (30° 25 N and 71° 30 E). In this experiment, four planting dates (10 January, 25 January, 10 February, and 25 February) with three cultivars (Ganga, Winner, and Savio) were grown with three replications (each year) during 2020 and 2021. Our findings showed that plant growth, fresh and dry biomass, yield, and yield attributes were statistically higher in earlier plantings, and lower in delayed planting. Regarding the cultivars in both years, ‘Winner’ performed better in all growth and yield parameters as compared to other growing cultivars. Lower weight loss and decay incidence were reported in ‘Winner’ cultivar. Additionally, ‘Winner’ cultivar showed a higher sensory score as compared to the other cultivar in both years. From the results, we conclude that the nursery of sweet pepper plants should be planted on the 25 January to attain higher crop productivity, and the cultivar ‘Winner’ showed promising effects so it should be planted for better yield. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Soil Management and Crop Production Research)
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14 pages, 2090 KiB  
Article
Agro-Ecological Practice for Sustaining Higher Productivity of Fennel Plant Using Alley Cropping System and Endophytic Fungi
by Sabah A. Hammad, Magdi I. Bahnasy, Nurah M. Alzamel, Mona F. A. Hussein, Ahmed A. A. Mahmoud and Naglaa Loutfy
Sustainability 2024, 16(12), 5167; https://doi.org/10.3390/su16125167 - 18 Jun 2024
Viewed by 651
Abstract
Sustainable ecological agriculture is achieved by regulating the benefits of trees. The application of leguminous trees as alley cropping protects and increases soil fertility, improves the quality of water by intercepting pesticides, changes the local climate, improves biodiversity, and thus improves productivity. In [...] Read more.
Sustainable ecological agriculture is achieved by regulating the benefits of trees. The application of leguminous trees as alley cropping protects and increases soil fertility, improves the quality of water by intercepting pesticides, changes the local climate, improves biodiversity, and thus improves productivity. In order to evaluate the impact of alley cropping upon the growth and productivity attributes of fennel, an experiment was carried out during two seasons. The experiment included eight treatments. Fennel seeds were cultivated between Sesbania alleys and treated with N and endophytic fungi according to the eight treatments. After harvesting the fennel, different parameters were determined and biochemical analyses were conducted. All of the alley cropping treatments showed remarkable superiority in all measures of fennel growth and productivity compared to the sole crop treatment. Among the different alley cropping treatments, applying Sesbania at 4 m spacing with N fertilizer and EF increased most of the studied parameters in terms of the least number of days from planting until harvesting of fennel, herb dry weight, number of umbels, fruit yield, essential oil, N, P, and K content, and pigments. In contrast, the highest plant height was recorded with fennel–Sesbania at 2 m spacing + N fertilizer + EF. Applying fennel–Sesbania at 6 m spacing + N fertilizer + EF treatment resulted in higher stem diameter and increased the number of main branches compared to the other treatments. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Soil Management and Crop Production Research)
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13 pages, 2735 KiB  
Article
Effect of the Spading Machine on Various Soil Parameters at Different Tillage Depths
by Neeraj Kumar Singh, Baldev Dogra, Gursahib Singh Manes, Dilwar Singh Parihar, Ali Salem and Ahmed Elbeltagi
Sustainability 2024, 16(11), 4334; https://doi.org/10.3390/su16114334 - 21 May 2024
Viewed by 631
Abstract
This study was carried out to investigate the effect of the spading machine as a sustainable tillage tool at different depths of tillage on soil parameters. The spading machine was evaluated for two independent parameters: soil type and depth of cut. The observed [...] Read more.
This study was carried out to investigate the effect of the spading machine as a sustainable tillage tool at different depths of tillage on soil parameters. The spading machine was evaluated for two independent parameters: soil type and depth of cut. The observed dependent parameters were the bulk density of soil, mean clod size, soil strength, torque requirement, fuel consumption, and cost of operation. The bulk density varied from 1.18 to 1.39 g/cm3, the mean clod size between 12.72 and 68.37 mm, the soil strength between 69 and 4714.5 kPa, the torque requirement between 206 and 344.62 N-m, the fuel consumption between 13.60 and 21.83 l/ha, and cost of operation ranged between 2670.37 INR/ha (34.71 USD/ha) and 3635.87 INR/ha (47.27 USD/ha). It was observed that with the increase in tillage depth, the dependent parameters were also increasing, except the cost of operation varied nonsignificantly. In comparison to the spading machine, other primary tillage tools resulted in higher bulk density and fuel consumption, whereas mean clod size and cost of operation were reported higher except for the rotary tillage tool. Thus, the spading machine could be a sustainable tillage tool for long-term agricultural goals. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Soil Management and Crop Production Research)
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11 pages, 1823 KiB  
Article
Exploring the Impact of Humic Biostimulants on Cassava Yield and Nutrition in Northeast Brazil
by Maisa da Conceição Santos, Mônica Tejo Cavalcanti, Larissa Nicácio Pessoa, Zenaide Gomes da Silva, Allisson Miguel da Silva, Tancredo Souza, Juliane Maciel Henschel, Emmanuel Moreira Pereira, Manoel Alexandre Diniz Neto and Belísia Lúcia Moreira Toscano Diniz
Sustainability 2024, 16(10), 4088; https://doi.org/10.3390/su16104088 - 13 May 2024
Viewed by 673
Abstract
Cassava is a staple food mainly produced with low management inputs, causing soil depletion and low yields. The use of organic inputs, such as humic substances (HSs), represents a sustainable alternative to increase cassava growth and production, mainly in semi-arid regions such as [...] Read more.
Cassava is a staple food mainly produced with low management inputs, causing soil depletion and low yields. The use of organic inputs, such as humic substances (HSs), represents a sustainable alternative to increase cassava growth and production, mainly in semi-arid regions such as the Brazilian Northeast. Thus, the objective was to evaluate the foliar application of a biostimulant based on humic substances on the morphophysiology, production, and mineral nutrient contents of cassava. The biofortified cultivar BRS Dourada was grown under field conditions and foliar application of a biostimulant based on humic substances (BHSs, treated plants) or water (untreated, control). The experiment was conducted in a randomized block design with four repetitions. At 225 days after planting, the growth, productivity, and mineral nutrient contents of soil, roots, and leaves were determined. No differences between treated and untreated plants were found for growth and productivity (average 15.2 t ha−1). On the other hand, BHS treatment reduced net carbon assimilation, water use efficiency, and carboxylation efficiency by 34%, 24%, and 47%, respectively. Moreover, BHS treatment reduced nutrient uptake from soil, and Na and K contents in roots and leaves, respectively. A foliar BHS application is not recommended for cassava production in the conditions evaluated here. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Soil Management and Crop Production Research)
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Review

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25 pages, 1779 KiB  
Review
Rooted in Nature: The Rise, Challenges, and Potential of Organic Farming and Fertilizers in Agroecosystems
by Dinesh Panday, Nikita Bhusal, Saurav Das and Arash Ghalehgolabbehbahani
Sustainability 2024, 16(4), 1530; https://doi.org/10.3390/su16041530 - 11 Feb 2024
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 11786
Abstract
Organic farming, which is deeply rooted in traditional agricultural practices, has witnessed a profound evolution over the last century. Transitioning from a grassroots initiative resisting the industrialization of agriculture to a global industry, organic farming now plays a pivotal role in addressing contemporary [...] Read more.
Organic farming, which is deeply rooted in traditional agricultural practices, has witnessed a profound evolution over the last century. Transitioning from a grassroots initiative resisting the industrialization of agriculture to a global industry, organic farming now plays a pivotal role in addressing contemporary challenges related to environmental health, sustainability, and food safety. Despite the growing consumer demand for organic products and market access, organic farming has its challenges. This paper discusses the origin and evolution of organic farming with an emphasis on different types of organic fertilizers, benefits, and challenges. Nutrient variability and the slow-release nature of organic fertilizer often do not meet crop demands and can substantially reduce yield. Some organic fertilizers, like manure and biosolids, can provide a higher yield benefit, but there are environmental and health risks associated with them. Weed and pest management in organic farming can be labor-intensive and increase costs. Inefficient planning of organic farming and rapid transition can also create food insecurity. This paper also gives a brief account of the current certification process for organic fertilizers and their technicalities. It showcases how the holistic approach of organic farming extends beyond production, including strategies like reducing food waste and building self-sufficient farming communities. These practices contribute to a more sustainable agricultural system, reducing environmental impacts and supporting local economies. Future technological innovations, especially in precision agriculture and bio-physicochemical models, can help in formulating targeted organic fertilizers. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Soil Management and Crop Production Research)
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