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Agronomy
Special Issues
Integrated Management Tactics for Resilient and Sustainable Vegetable Crops Production
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Integrated Management Tactics for Resilient and Sustainable Vegetable Crops Production

A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Farming Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2023) | Viewed by 3229

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Alessandro Miceli

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Sciences, University of Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, 90128 Palermo, Italy
Interests: horticulture; floriculture; plant protection; sustainable agriculture; salt stress; plant biostimulants; phytohormones; postharvest; fruit quality
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Alessandra Moncada

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Sciences, University of Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, 90128 Palermo, Italy
Interests: soilless cultivation; plant nutrition; nutrient solutions; organic farming; biostimulants; phytohormones
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Horticultural production systems are currently trying to meet consumer demand for affordable food while improving sustainability. In recent decades, the management of intensive crops has aimed at maximizing yield, thus creating unstable, fragile, and non-sustainable production systems. Such systems are subject to reduced soil quality, increased pest and disease susceptibility, reduced tolerance to abiotic stresses, lower food quality, and negative impact on the health and wellbeing of our communities.

Recently, there has been a clear move toward the improvement of vegetable production systems following increasing consumer awareness of produce quality, nutritional value, and crop production impact on the environment, and grower interest in developing resilient and stable production systems. This goal could be achieved by adopting production practices that improve soil health and fertility, crop productivity, and enhance farm profitability together with farm sustainability.

Such practices put emphasis on the use of natural processes within vegetable crop systems, which induce resilience through synergies and complementarities at different levels (within the field, the farm, and communities). Among these practices, we can include conservation (or reduced) tillage systems, cover cropping, crop diversity including crop rotations and intercropping, use of suitable crop cultivars or resilient and neglected species, efficient water and nitrogen use, balanced nutrient management plans, and plant growth promoting product or microorganism application.

Vegetable production systems are complex and dynamic and can involve a diverse number of production practices. The study of integrated management of production practices could help to increase the resilience and sustainability of vegetable crop.

This Special Issue aims to collect research papers and reviews focusing on “Integrated Management Tactics for Resilient and Sustainable Vegetable Crops Production”. Therefore, research articles, reviews, short notes, and opinion articles related to the effects of innovative agricultural practices and their integrated management on vegetable crop resilience and sustainability are welcome in this Special Issue.

Dr. Alessandro Miceli
Dr. Alessandra Moncada
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.

Keywords

  • vegetable crops
  • agronomic practices
  • crop management
  • abiotic stress
  • biostimulants
  • resilient vegetable crops
  • crop sustainability
  • sustainable fertilization
  • vegetable quality

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 638 KiB  
Article
Nutrient and Nutraceutical Quality of Rocket as a Function of Greenhouse Cover Film, Nitrogen Dose and Biostimulant Application
by Roberta Paradiso, Ida Di Mola, Eugenio Cozzolino, Lucia Ottaiano, Christophe El-Nakhel, Youssef Rouphael and Mauro Mori
Agronomy 2023, 13(3), 638; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy13030638 - 23 Feb 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1194
Abstract
The nutrient and nutraceutical quality of greenhouse wild rocket is strongly influenced by the light environment and nitrogen fertilization. We investigated the effects of two cover materials, a diffuse light film (Film1) and a traditional clear film (Film2), and three nitrogen regimes, no [...] Read more.
The nutrient and nutraceutical quality of greenhouse wild rocket is strongly influenced by the light environment and nitrogen fertilization. We investigated the effects of two cover materials, a diffuse light film (Film1) and a traditional clear film (Film2), and three nitrogen regimes, no N supply (N0) and sub-optimal (N1) and optimal (N2) doses, also in combination with a biostimulant (Stimolo Mo), on the mineral composition, antioxidant properties and chlorophyll and carotenoid content of rocket plants grown in the autumn–spring cycle. The leaf concentration of most of the minerals was higher under Film1 compared to Film2. In general, K, Ca, Mg and Na were higher, and S was lower in the presence of N supply, and the addition of the biostimulant promoted the mineral uptake. Under Film1, the hydrophilic antioxidant activity (HAA) was higher in some harvests, and the ABTS antioxidant activity (ABTS AA) in the first one, while always lower afterward, than under Film2. Nitrogen fertilization did not affect the antioxidant activity, while it reduced the content of total phenols and ascorbic acid. The biostimulant application increased ABTS AA at the optimal N dose and reduced total phenols in unfertilized plants. Both the diffuse light and the N supply inhibited the synthesis of ascorbic acid, while N fertilization and the biostimulant promoted the synthesis of chlorophylls. The experimental treatments exerted variable effects over time and significant interactions with the harvest period were found for many of the investigated parameters. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Integrated Management Tactics for Resilient and Sustainable Vegetable Crops Production)
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22 pages, 4764 KiB  
Article
Effect of Mycorrhizal Inoculation on Melon Plants under Deficit Irrigation Regimes
by Alessandro Miceli, Filippo Vetrano, Livio Torta, Alessandro Esposito and Alessandra Moncada
Agronomy 2023, 13(2), 440; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy13020440 - 01 Feb 2023
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1613
Abstract
The shortage of good quantity and quality of water for irrigated agriculture is a major problem in arid and semiarid regions. To deal with this problem, deficit irrigation (DI) or arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) inoculation have been proposed and adopted for many crops [...] Read more.
The shortage of good quantity and quality of water for irrigated agriculture is a major problem in arid and semiarid regions. To deal with this problem, deficit irrigation (DI) or arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) inoculation have been proposed and adopted for many crops as a tool to save water, or to improve crop tolerance to drought stress. An experiment was conducted for two consecutive years to evaluate the effect of mycorrhizal inoculation on the physiological, morphological, yield, and quality characteristics of melon plants grown under deficit irrigation. Melon crop (Cucumis melo L. cv. Helios) was grown under field conditions adopting a split-plot design with four replications, where DI was the main factor and AMF inoculation was the secondary factor. DI treatments consisted of applying 60%, 80%, or 100% of crop evapotranspiration (ETc) on melon plants inoculated or not with a commercial biostimulant containing 50% of Rhizophagus irregularis, and 50% of Funneliformis mosseae. Moderate and severe deficit irrigation significantly reduced the relative water content, stomatal conductance, yield, nitrogen applied efficiency (NAE), and fruit firmness of the uninoculated plants, but significantly increased irrigation water use efficiency (IWUE) and the ascorbic acid content of the fruit. AMF had a positive effect on plant tolerance to moderate water stress, and on some fruit quality parameters (fruit length, firmness, and sugar content). The combined use of moderate deficit irrigation (80%) and soil inoculation with AMF on melon plants allows water savings without affecting fruit yield, and increases IWUE, NAE, and some fruit quality characteristics (firmness, SSC, and SSC/TA). Furthermore, the use of AMF plants could be worth it to reduce the yield loss and increase fruit quality, even with severe deficit irrigation (60%). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Integrated Management Tactics for Resilient and Sustainable Vegetable Crops Production)
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