Sustainable Soil Management and Crop Production Research

Dear Colleagues,

Soil provides crop plants with the essential nutrients, water, and root support they require to grow and thrive. There are a number of factors that affect soil quality, including climatic conditions, time, living organisms, and, especially, the human management of soil. The soil condition determines the effectiveness of any crop. The use of mineral fertilizers and plant protection products has steadily increased over the last century, adversely impacting soil conditions and the environment. The inefficient use of nutrients in fertilizers has resulted in the migration of harmful compounds. Intensive cultivation and the use of mineral fertilizers have adversely affected biodiversity, resulting in significantly reduced physical and chemical properties in the soil. Thus, the problem of environmental pollution has become global.

In this regard, agriculture has a significant impact on natural resources, which could adversely affect environmental protection and result in the degradation of agricultural lands. In response to this situation, a heated debate has emerged over the need for better fertilizer management and more sustainable soil nutrient use, highlighting the importance of integrating methods and practices designed to achieve adequate plant nutrition and productivity. New agricultural practices, fertilization methods, amendments, and plant nutrition sources, along with the use of bacteria and fungi to enhance nutrient utilization by crops, all provide interesting and sustainable solutions for maintaining soil life, improving fertility, and feeding plants in order to promote sustainable agricultural production. In addition, the use of new and/or existing sources of fertilizers and soil improvers, either directly (direct input into the soil) or indirectly (physicochemical transformation), is beneficial to minimize contamination and environmental impacts. For this reason, understanding nutrient reactions and processes in soils (soil fertility), as well as managing inorganic and organic nutrient input efficiently (nutrient management), is essential to maximizing nutrient supply to crops and minimizing environmental risk.

This Special Issue, entitled “Sustainable Soil Management and Crop Production Research”, focuses on recent scientific progress and innovation in agriculture regarding the evaluation of the spatial–temporal variability of nutrients for precise prescription, the assessment of crop responses to nutrient application, the development of integrated nutrient management (INM) strategies for sustaining soil health and crop productivity and quality, the improvement in nutrient use efficiency (NUE), the establishment of critical limits for nutrients under different soil–crop conditions for revising nutrients recommendations, and the development of best management practices (BMPs) for nutrients under various soil–crop conditions. We welcome original papers, reviews, and opinion papers that enhance our understanding of the above-mentioned topics.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Ioannis Roussis
Dr. Ioanna Kakabouki
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. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 2400 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.

• soil quality
• soil fertility
• organic carbon
• plant nutrition
• integrated nutrient management
• nutrient interactions
• nutrient use efficiency
• sustainable agriculture
• no-tillage agriculture
• biostimulants
• organic fertilizers and biofertilizers
• plant-growth-promoting rhizobacteria
• crop residues
• compost