Emerging Technologies in Crop Protection: Advanced Methods and Machinery

A special issue of Agriculture (ISSN 2077-0472). This special issue belongs to the section "Agricultural Technology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2026 | Viewed by 551

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
College of Mechanical and Electronic Engineering, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, China
Interests: crop protection methods; crop protection machinery; intelligent pesticide application technology; electrostatic spraying and nozzles
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Mechanical and Electronic Engineering, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, China
Interests: crop protection machinery; direct nozzle injection systems; inline mixing of pesticides; intelligent pesticide application technology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Crops and their environment are geared to a generalized natural ecosystem. During the growth process, crops are subjected to the long-term biotic stresses of diseases, insects, weeds, and so on, as well as the abiotic stresses of droughts, floods, frost and freezing, and soil salinization, which cause significant changes in the structure and function of complex crop ecosystems and often accompany secondary disasters. Over thousands of years, the history of human survival and development has been accompanied by the struggle against these crop stresses. Crop protection practices have been significantly enriched and related machinery has been widely studied around the world.

This Special Issue focuses on building a community of authors and readers to discuss the latest research experiences, the emerging technologies of advanced methods (agricultural, physical, biological, chemical, plant quarantine, and integrated pest management), and environment-friendly machinery in crop protection. Intelligent crop protection technology is of crucial importance. The emerging technologies for crop protection methods and machinery include but are not limited to intelligent integrated pest management, crop protection UAVs and robots, AI-based crop pest identification, variable-rate technology, smart targeting spraying, and matching technology between crop phenotype customization and crop protection machinery operation, as well as other innovative ideas for strategies and solutions in crop protection.

We would like to invite scholars and researchers from around the world to contribute all types of articles, such as original research, reviews, and cutting-edge opinions to create a collection of papers on insightful strategies and innovative technologies for advanced methods and machinery in crop protection.

Prof. Dr. Jiaqiang Zheng
Prof. Dr. Youlin Xu
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • crop pest identification
  • crop protection methods
  • crop protection machinery
  • integrated pest management
  • intelligent pesticide application technology
  • variable-rate technology
  • crop protection UAVs and robots
  • strategies and solutions

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Review

33 pages, 4579 KB  
Review
Ultrafine Bubble Water for Crop Stress Management in Plant Protection Practices: Property, Generation, Application, and Future Direction
by Jiaqiang Zheng, Youlin Xu, Deyun Liu, Yiliang Chen and Yu Wang
Agriculture 2025, 15(23), 2484; https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture15232484 - 29 Nov 2025
Viewed by 243
Abstract
Every year, up to 40% of the crops in the world are lost to pests. Plants have suffered from prolonged biotic stresses and abiotic stresses, which cause significant changes in complex crop ecosystems, necessitating intensive pest management strategies that have often been accompanied [...] Read more.
Every year, up to 40% of the crops in the world are lost to pests. Plants have suffered from prolonged biotic stresses and abiotic stresses, which cause significant changes in complex crop ecosystems, necessitating intensive pest management strategies that have often been accompanied by the struggle against plant pests. Plant pests and diseases control methods heavily reliant on chemical pesticides have caused many adverse effects. One innovative method involves using ultrafine bubble (UFB) waters, which can enable pesticide reduction action for the plant pest control. The classification and six properties of UFBs were summarized, and the generation approaches of UFBs were introduced based on physical and chemical methods. The applications of UFBs and ozone UFB waters in plant protection practices were comprehensively reviewed, in which UFB waters against the plant pests and the soilborne, airborne and waterborne diseases were analyzed, and the abiotic stresses of crops in high-salinity soil and contaminated soil, drought, and soil with heavy metals were reviewed. Despite promising applications, UFB technology has limitations. Aiming at pesticide reduction and replacement using UFB waters, the mechanism of UFB water controlling plant pests and diseases, the molecular mechanism of UFB water affecting plant pest resistance, the plant growth in harsh polluted environments, the UFB behavior with hydrophobic and hydrophilic surfaces of crops, and the building of an integrated intelligent crop growth system were proposed. Full article
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