Agricultural Water Management Strategies for Sustainable Crop Production

A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Water Use and Irrigation".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 April 2024 | Viewed by 2235

Special Issue Editors


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Wind Erosion and Water Conservation Research Unit, USDA–ARS, Lubbock, TX 79415, USA
Interests: hydrology; agriculture; soil fertility; water resources management; plant physiology; soil; soil and water conservation; environmental science; sustainable agriculture; environment

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Horticulture, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou 350000, China
Interests: agricultural water management; irrigation and water use; fertilizers; plant physiology; crop yield and quality; environmental pollution

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In the past, disorderly irrigation methods and poor irrigation techniques have disrupted the dynamic balance between soil and water, resulting in nutrient loss, soil deterioration, and reduced crop yield and quality. Irrigation may influence crop yield and quality by affecting soil nutrient availability, soil porosity, acidity and alkalinity, microbial community, etc. Some plant physiological diseases are also closely related to water supply. Therefore, understanding the relationship and mechanism between agricultural water management and crop production is crucial for selecting reasonable irrigation strategies.

This Special Issue will primarily discuss agricultural water management strategies for sustainable crop production, including (but not limited to) the relationship between irrigation and crop yield and quality, plant physiology, soil nutrient, soil salt, and irrigation strategy. Moreover, agricultural water management technology in specific situations, such as greenhouse, hilly areas, and coastal areas, etc., will be covered.

Frontier research mainly focuses on the microbial driving mechanism of soil nutrient loss caused by irrigation, soil nutrient balance under different irrigation methods, crop yield responses, and the quality of different irrigation methods (sprinkler irrigation and drip irrigation) or irrigation regimes, as well as the irrigation–yield model.

Researchers and experts are invited to provide original research articles. We aim to exchange information related to agricultural water management for crop production, so as to promote the rationalization of agricultural irrigation technology and methods.

Dr. Robert J. Lascano
Dr. Maomao Hou
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

  • irrigation
  • crop quality
  • yield
  • soil nutrient

Published Papers (2 papers)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

14 pages, 3908 KiB  
Article
Soil Gaseous Carbon Emissions from Lettuce Fields as Influenced by Different Irrigation Lower Limits and Methods
by Jinwei Wang, Yousef Alhaj Hamoud, Qinyuan Zhu, Hiba Shaghaleh, Jingnan Chen, Fenglin Zhong and Maomao Hou
Agronomy 2024, 14(3), 563; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy14030563 - 11 Mar 2024
Viewed by 1035
Abstract
Lettuce is a water-sensitive stem-used plant, and its rapid growth process causes significant disturbances to the soil. Few studies have focused on the gaseous carbon emissions from lettuce fields under different irrigation methods. Therefore, this study investigated the effect of different drip-irrigation lower [...] Read more.
Lettuce is a water-sensitive stem-used plant, and its rapid growth process causes significant disturbances to the soil. Few studies have focused on the gaseous carbon emissions from lettuce fields under different irrigation methods. Therefore, this study investigated the effect of different drip-irrigation lower limits and methods (drip and furrow irrigation) on greenhouse gas (CO2, CH4) emissions from lettuce fields. Thus, drip irrigation (DI) was implemented using three different lower limits of irrigation corresponding to 75%, 65%, and 55% of the field capacity, and named DR1, DR2, and DR3, respectively. Furrow irrigation (FI) was used as a control treatment. The CO2 and CH4 emission fluxes, soil temperature, and soil enzyme activities were detected. The results showed that the cumulative CO2 emission was highest under DR3 and relatively lower under DR1. For the FI treatment, the cumulative CO2 emission (382.7 g C m−2) was higher than that under DR1 but 20.2% lower than that under DR2. The cumulative CH4 emissions under FI (0.012 g C m−2) were the greatest in the whole lettuce growth period, while DR2 and DR3 treatments emitted lower amounts of CH4. The irrigation method considerably enhanced the activity of urease and catalase, meanwhile promoting CO2 emission. The low irrigation amount each time combined with high irrigation frequency reduced soil CO2 emission while increasing CH4 emission. From the perspective of the total reduction of gaseous carbon, DR1 is the optimal drip irrigation method among all the irrigation lower limits and methods. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

19 pages, 3719 KiB  
Article
Long-Term Study of the Crop Forcing Technique on cv. Tempranillo (Vitis vinifera L.) Vines and Suggested Irrigation Strategies to Improve Water Use Efficiency of Forced Vines
by Jordi Oliver-Manera, Omar García-Tejera, Mercè Mata and Joan Girona
Agronomy 2024, 14(1), 130; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy14010130 - 04 Jan 2024
Viewed by 701
Abstract
Recently, the crop forcing technique (summer pruning that “forces” the vine to start a new cycle) has proven to be effective in delaying the harvest date and increasing must acidity, but also reducing the yield. However, recent information on deficit irrigation strategies combined [...] Read more.
Recently, the crop forcing technique (summer pruning that “forces” the vine to start a new cycle) has proven to be effective in delaying the harvest date and increasing must acidity, but also reducing the yield. However, recent information on deficit irrigation strategies combined with the crop forcing technique reveals that the crop forcing technique reduces irrigation water use efficiency. Two experiments were conducted. Experiment 1 was a 4-year trial to test the effect of the forcing pruning date on the phenology, yield, yield components and water requirements when post-veraison water stress is applied. In this experiment, the treatments were unforced vines (UF-RDI) and forced vines with a forcing pruning date about 70 (F1-RDI) and 100 (F2-RDI) days after budburst. The harvest date was delayed 34 (F1) and 66 (F2) days increasing the must acidity and malic acid concentration in the forced treatments. However, both forced treatments had a reduced yield (36% in F1 and 49% in F2) and irrigation water use efficiency (12% in F1 and 65% in F2). Experiment 2 was a 2-year trial in which irrigation was suppressed before the forcing pruning in F1 (F1-Pre) and F2 (F2-Pre) and after veraison. The yield, yield components, must quality and irrigation were compared to forced vines with irrigation suppression only after veraison (F1-RDI and F2-RDI). For the entire experiment, both treatments in which irrigation was suppressed before the forcing pruning reduced the amount of irrigation supplied (10% in F1-Pre and 30% in F2-Pre) with no negative effects on the yield, yield components or must quality when compared to F-RDI treatments. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop