Dear Colleagues，

The adaptation of horticulture to global changes, soil degradation and water scarcity involves new technical and management solutions, particularly in dryer areas. This issue is emergent due to the adverse impacts of global and climatic changes threatening to reduce the water available for agriculture and the increased demands of society for horticultural products and services, such as food, medicinal, environmental, and social ones. The digitization of agriculture offers new solutions to deal with many of the new problems, through information technologies that enhance the collection of data by sensor systems, the automation of many processes allowing to optimize the effectiveness of operations and the efficiency of the use of resources, eventuating in greater sustainability and resilience of agricultural production. New developments are appearing, such as: the water management of irrigation systems, including hydroponic with the inherent irrigation scheduling, and fertigation; monitoring of soil moisture, salinity, nutrients, plants and weather, and communication technologies systems to support the crop and soil management.

This Special Issue will focus on recent developments of horticultural technology and practice, particularly related with water and soil management. These developments will contribute to clarify some current questions and point out feasible solutions for specific real problems, particularly on water scarcity and soil conservation contexts.

Submissions on the following topics are encouraged: (1) Irrigation management, including scheduling optimization, and systems operation control and automation aiming water and energy savings. (2) Crop management and fertilization, including crop local and remote sensing, controlled deficit irrigation and yield optimization. (3) Soil management techniques like organic and mineral fertilization, tillage intensity, application of manure, biochar and char, mulching, seaweeds, and plant residue management. (4) Management strategies controlling nutrient input and losses applying digital and precision techniques and modelling.

Prof. Dr. Kiril Bahcevandziev
Dr. José Manuel Monteiro Gonçalves
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. Horticulturae 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 2200 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.

• food production
• irrigation water demand
• soil water management
• fertigation management
• precision irrigation
• digital horticulture