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Sustainable Agricultural Management Practices Effects On: Soil Quality, Productivity and Environmental Resilience

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

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2022) | Viewed by 13025

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Lúcia Barão

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Center for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes (cE3c), University of Lisbon, 1749-016 Lisbon, Portugal
Interests: environment; soil science; nutrient cycles; silicon cycle; biogeochemistry; agriculture
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Abdallah Alaoui

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Centre for Development and Environment (CDE), University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
Interests: soil science; importance of soils for agriculture and forestry; importance of soils for ecosystems functions; soil management; soil protection
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue will collect original work focused on evaluating the effects of promising and sustainable agricultural management practices on the soil quality, agricultural productivity, and environmental resilience of agricultural ecosystems.

Traditional and intensive agricultural practices have led to soil resource exhaustion and decrease in overall soil quality, while also compromising productivity in both short and long terms. During the last few decades, promising management practices have been suggested, such as crop rotation, minimum tillage, and cover crops, as well as other forms of management that are currently under development. The evaluation and quantification of the effects of these agricultural practices on soil quality and associated ecosystem services are crucial to understanding how, where, and when it is possible to reduce soil degradation triggered by agricultural activities. In parallel, it is also important to assess the productivity achieved with such promising practices to understand both the short and long-term impacts on crop yields, and provide knowledge on their costs and benefits. This information must be shared among farmers and policymakers in order to foster agriculture sustainability and the achievement of land degradation neutrality targets while providing enough food for an increasing global population.

Recent studies have been aggregating and pinpointing different management practices as well as their singular effects on specific ecological indicators, but there is a current need for studies targeting direct effects of promising management practices on the soil quality as a whole, and also the general effect of this soil quality status on agricultural productivity.

For this Special Issue, we invite papers investigating the effects of promising/sustainable management practices, when compared with the traditional ones, on soil physical, chemical, and biological parameters, soil degradation, and soil functions and ecosystem services. We welcome comparative studies that go deeper in understanding the productivity gain/loss in shorter and longer terms time spans and the conceptual understanding of the link between soil quality and yield. Review papers are also welcome that systematically aggregate information concerning promising practices already in use for some years.

Dr. Lúcia Barão
Dr. Abdallah Alaoui
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

  • promising management practices
  • agricultural sustainability
  • soil quality
  • ecosystem services
  • soil functions
  • productivity

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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16 pages, 3656 KiB  
Article
Field-Scale Evaluation of the Soil Quality Index as Influenced by Dairy Manure and Inorganic Fertilizers
by Ekrem Ozlu, Gafur Gozukara, Mert Acar, Serdar Bilen and Emre Babur
Sustainability 2022, 14(13), 7593; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14137593 - 22 Jun 2022
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 2831
Abstract
Long-term addition of manure increases soil organic carbon (SOC), provides nutrient supply, enhances soil quality and crop yield (CY), but may also increase global warming potential (GWP). In this study, a long-term experiment was conducted to investigate impacts of organic dairy manure and [...] Read more.
Long-term addition of manure increases soil organic carbon (SOC), provides nutrient supply, enhances soil quality and crop yield (CY), but may also increase global warming potential (GWP). In this study, a long-term experiment was conducted to investigate impacts of organic dairy manure and inorganic fertilizer on the spatial distribution of soil quality indicators in field scale. The experiment was initiated in 2008 (seven years), and includes three manure and two inorganic fertilizer treatments along with a control (no manure or no inorganic fertilizer addition). The study was set into a randomized complete block design with six treatments and four replications in a total of 24 plots with an equal size each of 6 × 18 m (108 m2). Soil physical, chemical and biological properties (total 26 properties) were considered as the total data set and principal component analysis (PCA) was used to determine long-term organic and inorganic fertilizer-induced changes in soil quality. Ordinary kriging interpolation methods were used to predict the spatial distributions of soil quality index (SQI) and mean soil quality values were compared with fertilization treatments by using Duncan’s test. Results showed that most measured soil quality index parameters showed significant differences (p < 0.05). The long-term dairy manure applications had positive impacts on soil quality index parameters where overall SQI scores were higher under high manure (HM) compared to medium manure (MM), low manure (LM), medium fertilizer (MF), high fertilizer (HF), control (CK) by 25%, 27%, 47%, 55% and 92%. A similar trend was observed for CY and GWP. This indicates that long-term dairy manure can be an option to increase SQI values and provide higher CY, however, this may lead to greater GWP. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Agricultural Management Practices Effects On: Soil Quality, Productivity and Environmental Resilience)
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17 pages, 690 KiB  
Article
Study of Organic Fertilizers and Rice Varieties on Rice Production and Methane Emissions in Nutrient-Poor Irrigated Rice Fields
by Forita Dyah Arianti, Miranti Dian Pertiwi, Joko Triastono, Heni Purwaningsih, Sri Minarsih, Kristamtini, Yulis Hindarwati, Sodiq Jauhari, Dewi Sahara and Endah Nurwahyuni
Sustainability 2022, 14(10), 5919; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14105919 - 13 May 2022
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 6031
Abstract
The problem of rice farming in Indonesia is the increasing extent of nutrient-poor land due to the lack of addition of organic matter and continuously inundated irrigated rice fields, causing the production of greenhouse gas emissions, such as methane gas (CH4), [...] Read more.
The problem of rice farming in Indonesia is the increasing extent of nutrient-poor land due to the lack of addition of organic matter and continuously inundated irrigated rice fields, causing the production of greenhouse gas emissions, such as methane gas (CH4), to increase. The study aims to determine the impact of organic fertilizers and rice varieties on rice yield, methane emissions, and the feasibility of farming in nutrient-poor rice fields. The study used a randomized block design in factorial with four replicates. The first factor is the type of organic fertilizers (compost of rice straw and goat manure), and the second factor is the variety of rice (Ciherang, Inpari 20, and Inpari 30). The results showed that the productivity of Inpari 20 (8.02 t·ha−1) was significantly higher than that of Inpari 30 (6.10 t·ha−1) and Ciherang (6.91 t·ha−1). The highest yields of Harvest Dry Grain (HDG) to Milled Dry Grain (MDG) were the Inpari 20 (88.23%), Inpari 30 (86.94%), and Ciherang (85.04%). Methane (CH4) emissions were highest in the Ciherang variety (56.4 kg h−1 season−1), followed by Inpari 30 (40.8 kg h−1 season−1), and lowest in Inpari 20 (22.3 kg h−1 season−1). Compared to Inpari 30 and Ciherang varieties, the Inpari 20 variety with rice straw compost has broad development viability in nutrient-poor paddy fields (highest R/C ratio and break-even point). More research on organic rice is needed to determine the productivity and emissions (methane, nitrite, carbon dioxide). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Agricultural Management Practices Effects On: Soil Quality, Productivity and Environmental Resilience)
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Other

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18 pages, 1987 KiB  
Case Report
The Effect of Land Management Practices on Soil Quality Indicators in Crete
by Orestis Kairis, Chrysoula Aratzioglou, Athanasios Filis, Michel van Mol and Costas Kosmas
Sustainability 2021, 13(15), 8619; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13158619 - 2 Aug 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3034
Abstract
The effects of four main practices tillage versus no-tillage, and intensive grazing versus extensive grazing, applied in characteristic agricultural and grazing lands of Crete Island were evaluated in situ using nine soil quality indicators. The following nine representative indicators of soil quality were [...] Read more.
The effects of four main practices tillage versus no-tillage, and intensive grazing versus extensive grazing, applied in characteristic agricultural and grazing lands of Crete Island were evaluated in situ using nine soil quality indicators. The following nine representative indicators of soil quality were evaluated using the rapid visual assessment methodology adopted at European level in the context of the EU research project iSQAPER: susceptibility to water and wind erosion, surface ponding (under cropping), formation of tillage pan, soil color, soil porosity, soil structure, susceptibility to slaking, infiltration rate, and biodiversity status. These indicators were measured in 48 agricultural field-plots to adequately represent the four above-mentioned practices and the different types of geomorphological patterns existing in the area. Additionally, 38 agricultural fields were sampled in the topsoil to assess cultivation practices (tillage, no-tillage) on soil organic carbon, cation exchange capacity, exchangeable potassium, available phosphorous, and soil aggregate stability. Based on the indicators rating methodology, the appropriate statistical tests were applied and the soils under different managements were characterized in terms of their potential quality and their general agricultural value. The obtained data showed that in agricultural areas, significant differences were detected between tillage and no-tillage management practices for the indicators of soil structure and consistency and infiltration rate. In grazing land, significant differences were found for the soil quality indicators of susceptibility to erosion and infiltration rate for the corresponding practices of intensive and extensive grazing. Organic carbon content, exchangeable potassium content and aggregate stability were greatly affected in tillage versus no-tillage management practices. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Agricultural Management Practices Effects On: Soil Quality, Productivity and Environmental Resilience)
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