Optimising Practices for Crops in Protected Cultivation
A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Crop Breeding and Genetics".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2020) | Viewed by 3617
Special Issue Editor
2. Central Coast Primary Industries Centre, NSW Department of Primary Industries, Ourimbah, NSW 2258, Australia
Interests: plant nutrition; hydroponics; protected cropping; blueberry; cucumber; Asian vegetables
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Protected cultivation describes horticultural crops, grown intensively under covered structures and supplied with water and nutrients via fertigation. Crops can be planted in soil, or in a hydroponic channel or container system, with or without substrate. Since the 1990s, the area under protected cultivation has increased globally by more than five-fold, and this area continues to increase as arable land becomes limited and as growers adopt these systems to increase yield and quality, and to mitigate pests, diseases, and climate variability.
Advances have been made in agronomic practices and in plant breeding to increase the productivity and quality of produce grown in protected cultivation, such as using weighing lysimeters to measure changes in pot weight for estimating crop water use, and the development of cucumber varieties that do not require pollination. However, research and development is needed to address ongoing challenges, including optimising practices for new crops, and developing solutions to manage climate extremes and nutrient-rich drainage.
This Special Issue will focus on “Optimising Practices for Crops in Protected Cultivation”. We welcome novel research, review articles, and opinion pieces covering all related topics, including new crops, integrated pest management, pollination, food safety, plant nutrition, fertigation and rootzone management, water and nutrient recycling, salinity, crop physiological responses to growing conditions, structure design, crop and environmental modelling, and management solutions.
Dr. Sophie Parks
Guest Editor
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
- Greenhouse horticulture
- Protected cropping
- Glasshouse
- Hydroponics
- Energy use
- Water-use efficiency
- Fertiliser-use efficiency
- Nutrient removal and recovery
- Temperature and humidity control
- Light requirements
- Carbon dioxide enrichment
- Control systems
- Biological control
- phytosanitation
