Strategies to Improve Resource Use Efficiency and Stress Tolerance of Horticultural Crops in Controlled Environments

Dear Colleagues,

Controlled environment horticulture plays an increasingly vital role in ensuring sustainable and resilient food and ornamental crop production under the pressure of climate change, resource scarcity, and the rising demand for high-quality products. Systems such as greenhouses, plant factories, and vertical farms offer the possibility to precisely regulate environmental factors, including light, temperature, humidity, CO₂ concentration, and nutrient supply. However, the intensive use of energy, water, and production inputs necessitate innovative strategies to improve resource use efficiency while maintaining or enhancing crop performance. 

At the same time, horticultural crops grown in these environments often face abiotic stresses, such as salinity, temperature extremes, suboptimal light, and nutrient imbalances. These factors can significantly impact yield, quality, and physiological stability. Understanding plant stress tolerance mechanisms and developing mitigation strategies are therefore essential to optimize both productivity and sustainability. 

In this context, smart farming approaches—including sensor-based monitoring, automation, decision-support systems, and data-driven management—are increasingly being adopted to refine environmental control and support robust stress management.

For this Special Issue, we invite original research articles and comprehensive reviews that address physiological, agronomic, and technological innovations to improve the resource efficiency and stress tolerance of horticultural crops in controlled environments. We welcome contributions that focus on light management and spectral optimization, nutrient and water-use efficiency, advanced environmental control strategies, crop physiological responses to abiotic stress, innovative cultivation techniques, and smart farming solutions. Comprehensive review articles addressing recent advances, underlying mechanisms, and future research directions are encouraged. By integrating plant physiology, crop management, engineering, and digital tools, we seek to advance the current knowledge and promote the next generation of sustainable horticultural production systems. 

The topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Resource use efficiency in controlled environment horticulture;
• Water and nutrient management strategies;
• Light quantity, quality, and photoperiod optimization;
• LED lighting and spectral management;
• Crop responses to abiotic stresses (salinity, temperature, light, nutrient stress);
• Physiological and biochemical mechanisms of stress tolerance;
• Controlled environment systems;
• Greenhouse climate control and optimization;
• Smart farming, sensor-based monitoring, and automation in controlled environments;
• Sustainable cultivation techniques in controlled environments;
• Yield, quality, and resource efficiency trade-offs in horticultural crops.

Dr. Alessandra Moncada
Dr. Alessandro Miceli
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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. Agriculture 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 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.

• controlled environment horticulture
• greenhouse cultivation
• vertical farming
• plant factory
• resource use efficiency
• water use efficiency
• nutrient use efficiency
• light management
• LED lighting
• abiotic stress
• salinity stress
• temperature stress
• horticultural crops
• floriculture
• crop physiology
• sustainable production
• smart farming in controlled environments
• sensor-based monitoring