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Agronomy
Special Issues
Agronomic Comparisons of Crops in Low-Input and Conventional Farming Systems
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Agronomic Comparisons of Crops in Low-Input and Conventional Farming Systems

A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Innovative Cropping Systems".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2023) | Viewed by 6258

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Enrico Francia

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Life Science, Centre BIOGEST-SITEIA, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Via Amendola, N. 2, 42122 Reggio Emilia, Italy
Interests: small grain cereals; tomato; genetics and genomics; agronomy; crop physiology; abiotic stress tolerance; CBF/DREB transcription factors; copy number variation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Federica Caradonia

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Dipartimento di Scienze della Vita, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Via J.F. Kennedy, 17 I, 42122 Reggio Emilia, Italy
Interests: grafting; microorganism-plant interactions; horticultural crops
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Worldwide agricultural systems face several challenges to 1) provide safe food and feed a growing population; 2) guarantee economic profitability by reducing environmental impacts; and 3) increase the resilience and adaptation of the primary sector to climate changes.

Conventional farming systems are often based on monoculture and the yields are closely linked to the massive use of external inputs, leading to a great loss of biodiversity and lower environmental sustainability. On the other hand, low-input systems, such as organic or integrated farming, look for optimizing the management and the use of external inputs, making crop production more sustainable.

In this regard, this Special Issue “Agronomic Comparisons of Crops in Low-Input and Conventional Farming Systems” will deal with several aspects of herbaceous crops cultivated in different cropping systems under open field and greenhouse conditions. The aim of this Special Issue is to report the current state-of-the-art, showing the new advances in order to improve the sustainability of agriculture productions in low-input cropping systems. 

We invite experts and researchers to contribute with original research, reviews, and opinion pieces related to this topic. Authors are welcome to submit articles and reviews on the most important aspects of this comparison, such as the performances of genotypes or products and agroecological strategies aiming at increasing sustainable crop production.

Dr. Enrico Francia
Dr. Federica Caradonia
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

  • conventional farming system
  • integrated framing
  • low-Input farming system
  • organic cropping system
  • precision agriculture
  • sustainability
  • agronomic evaluation
  • crop quality

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 287 KiB  
Article
Ionomic Concentration and Metabolomic Profile of Organically and Conventionally Produced ‘Rojo Brillante’ Persimmon
by Nariane Q. Vilhena, Alejandra Salvador, Julia Morales, Almudena Bermejo and Ana Quiñones
Agronomy 2024, 14(1), 113; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy14010113 - 2 Jan 2024
Viewed by 1117
Abstract
This study evaluates mineral concentrations, biocomponents contents and fruit quality attributes in ‘Rojo Brillante’ persimmon grown under organic and conventional managements. During two seasons, the concentrations of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), zinc (Zn), [...] Read more.
This study evaluates mineral concentrations, biocomponents contents and fruit quality attributes in ‘Rojo Brillante’ persimmon grown under organic and conventional managements. During two seasons, the concentrations of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), zinc (Zn), and boron (B) were determined in leaves and fruits. Weight, color, firmness, and total soluble solids (TSS) were also evaluated in fruits. Moreover, in the second season, organic acids (citric, succinic, and fumaric acids), main sugars (sucrose, glucose, and fructose), carotenoids (β-carotene, β-cryptoxanthin, violaxanthin, lutein, and zeaxanthin), phenolic compounds (gallic and ρ-coumaric), and ascorbic acid concentrations were determined in fruit flesh. The crop yield in the conventional plots was bigger than that for organic crops. Nevertheless, the highest agronomic efficiency was found in organic management. In general, the greater nutrient supply in the conventional compared to in the organic system did not result in higher concentrations of macro- and microelements in leaves and fruits. The organic fruit had higher color values and lower firmness values than the conventional fruit. The concentrations of malic acid, β-cryptoxanthin, and ascorbic acid were higher in the organic compared to in the conventional fruit, while no crop system effect was found in the other evaluated biocompounds. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Agronomic Comparisons of Crops in Low-Input and Conventional Farming Systems)
23 pages, 1280 KiB  
Article
Development of Integrated Farming System Model—A Step towards Achieving Biodiverse, Resilient and Productive Green Economy in Agriculture for Small Holdings in India
by C. S. Shyam, Kapila Shekhawat, Sanjay Singh Rathore, Subhash Babu, Rajiv Kumar Singh, Pravin Kumar Upadhyay, Anchal Dass, Ayesha Fatima, Sandeep Kumar, G. D. Sanketh and Vinod Kumar Singh
Agronomy 2023, 13(4), 955; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy13040955 - 23 Mar 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 4625
Abstract
The agrarian communities of South Asia are dominated by small and marginal farmers (<2.0 ha operational holdings) and are confronted with manifold challenges of lower productivity, income, and resource degradation. For optimized and efficient resource use, a shift from business as usual towards [...] Read more.
The agrarian communities of South Asia are dominated by small and marginal farmers (<2.0 ha operational holdings) and are confronted with manifold challenges of lower productivity, income, and resource degradation. For optimized and efficient resource use, a shift from business as usual towards green economy is imperative. Therefore, a study to address these challenges, through integrating diverse crops and allied enterprises under an integrated farming system (IFS) model was carried out. We hypothesized that a standardized IFS model with appropriate location-specific modules will have higher system output, income, and lesser environmental footprints. Vegetable cultivation (VC), protected vegetable cultivation (PVC), field crops (FC), mushroom production (MP), and beekeeping (BK) were evaluated under the IFS model, with objectives to optimize the coherent use of available farm resources with enhancing system productivity and profitability. Among the FC module, the system productivity increased from 21–247% of different cropping systems, over the predominant rice–wheat system (RWS). The integration of different components, viz., VP + PVC + FC + AHS + MP + BK + VC in M10 resulted in achieving the maximum water productivity (6.72 kg/m3), energy productivity (1.50 kg/MJ), net return (9446 USD/ha), employment opportunities (792 man-days), sustainable livelihood index (70.2%), and nutrient cycling (138.12, 67.9, and 381.6 kg/ha of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, respectively). These findings can be a scientific basis for the optimization and sustainable management of natural resources under different modules of IFS for the less-endowed small and marginal farmers. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Agronomic Comparisons of Crops in Low-Input and Conventional Farming Systems)
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