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Agronomy

Agronomy is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal on agronomy and agroecology published monthly online by MDPI. 
The Spanish Society of Plant Biology (SEBP) is affiliated with Agronomy and their members receive discounts on the article processing charges.
Quartile Ranking JCR - Q1 (Agronomy | Plant Sciences)

All Articles (18,314)

Innovation adoption in primary sectors—agriculture, horticulture, forestry, and aquaculture—is essential for addressing pressing global challenges, including climate change, resource degradation, and food security. However, a persistent gap exists between innovation potential and actual implementation, with many promising technologies failing to achieve widespread adoption despite substantial research investments. This paper presents the Systemic Technology Adoption Model (STAM), a conceptual model that addresses critical gaps in adoption theory by integrating four quadrants: technologies, users, finance, and institutions. STAM explicitly recognizes adoption as a systemic process requiring alignment across multiple dimensions. The model’s distinctive contribution lies in its emphasis on inter-quadrant relationships, revealing how variables across different domains interact, compound, and cascade to create either enabling conditions or barriers. Through a test case, we illustrate how the model can enable practitioners to proactively identify potential adoption barriers early in the innovation development process, revealing when barriers in multiple quadrants compound to create obstacles, when cascade effects amplify constraints across the system, and where strategic interventions can address multiple barriers simultaneously. We discuss theoretical contributions and practical implications for practitioners and policy designers, highlighting how STAM could provide stakeholders with a tool for designing more effective adoption strategies.

8 December 2025

The Systemic Technology Adoption Model for Primary Sectors.

The response of chile peppers (Capsicum spp.) to different irrigation systems is an important factor affecting crop yield, quality parameters, and resistance to soil-borne diseases. The choice of irrigation method significantly impacts fruit size development, water-use efficiency, and overall crop production. Research shows that proper irrigation management can increase yields, improve physiological response, and reduce the incidence of Phytophthora blight, a major disease caused by Phytophthora capsici. However, over-irrigation directly harms chile peppers, causing waterlogging, which, together with increasing weed spreads, creates favorable conditions for P. capsici to grow and increase disease susceptibility. Conversely, under-irrigation can induce drought stress that weakens chile peppers and increases their vulnerability to P. capsici. Although the pathogen cannot thrive or spread in dry soils, severely stressed plants become highly susceptible when even brief periods of moisture occur—such as from dew, light rainfall, or a short irrigation event—creating favorable conditions for infection. In addition, lack of proper timing and insufficient irrigation frequency adversely affect fruit quality characteristics, including capsaicin content (spiciness), color, and nutrient composition. Water stress is extremely damaging because it can reduce the biomass of plants, delay flowering, reduce fruit size, or cause significant yield loss. Considering the importance of water management in chile pepper cultivation and optimizing irrigation systems is important to ensure high-quality crops. Disease susceptibility and effects of different irrigation systems, including inadequate irrigation and excessive irrigation, have been reviewed, with an emphasis on the impact of these irrigation methods on plant growth and yield quality, and on Phytophthora blight. This review aims to provide insights into the importance of irrigation management for sustainable and effective chile pepper production and disease control.

8 December 2025

Integrated effects of irrigation strategies on chile pepper physiology, yield, and phytophthora blight development.

Foxtail millet (Setaria italica (L.) P. Beauv.) exhibits varying efficiency in utilizing different nitrogen (N) forms. While selecting the appropriate N form is a recognized strategy for enhancing yield and reducing N losses, the integrated responses of millet productivity and soil N dynamics to specific N forms remain poorly understood. To address this, a three-year field experiment integrated with 15N isotopic tracing was conducted on the North China Plain. We systematically evaluated six fertilization treatments: control (CK), organic fertilizer (M), ammonium sulfate (AF), potassium nitrate (NF), ammonium nitrate (ANF), and urea (UR). The results demonstrated that M showed the greatest yield stability but a lower mean grain yield. In contrast, AF treatment achieved the highest grain yield (increasing by 0.90–27.68%) and N accumulation (increasing by 1.65–41.45%), along with the second-highest yield stability. During the growing season, the composition of soil inorganic nitrogen changed significantly. Across all treatments, the dominant form shifted from NH4+-N at the heading stage to NO3-N at the flowering and maturation stages. As demonstrated by the 15N-labeling experiments, foxtail millet presented a stage-dependent shift in nitrogen uptake preference from NO3 to NH4+. An in-depth analysis identified that sustaining soil inorganic N within 30–38 kg·ha−1 and optimizing the NO3:NH4+ ratio (4.5–5.3 at flowering; 1.5–1.8 at maturity) were critical for achieving high productivity. In conclusion, AF enhances yield by synchronizing N availability with crop demand, thereby optimizing N accumulation and reducing losses. These findings provide critical insights for designing sustainable millet production systems through tailored N source selection.

8 December 2025

Mean temperature (°C) and precipitation (mm) for the 2019 and 2021 growing seasons at the experimental sites.

Accurate quantification of the Fertilizer Nitrogen Equivalence (FNE) of manure is crucial for optimizing integrated nitrogen (N) management and reducing chemical fertilizer use in potato production. However, uncertainties persist regarding FNE’s response to varying application rates and estimation methodologies. A two-year field experiment in Inner Mongolia, China, evaluated multi-gradient sheep manure applications in potato systems to determine whether FNE exhibits diminishing returns with increasing manure rates and to assess the influence of different estimation approaches. Potato N uptake, tuber yield, and growth parameters were measured. FNE was estimated using four methods: total N uptake, fertilizer-derived N uptake, absolute tuber yield, and yield increment. The key findings were: (1) Potato yield and total N uptake increased with higher N inputs but followed the law of diminishing returns. Notably, FNE values remained statistically stable across a wide application range (180–1200 kg N ha−1, equivalent to 8–53 t ha−1 of sheep manure), with no significant decline observed (p > 0.05), regardless of the estimation method. (2) Yield-based FNE values were, on average, 41% lower than those based on N uptake, indicating inefficiencies in converting absorbed N into tuber biomass. Among the methods, the yield increment approach demonstrated the highest consistency and robustness across treatments. In conclusion, our study demonstrates that the FNE of sheep manure remains stable across a broad application range in potato systems, with no evidence of diminishing returns. For practical fertilizer substitution, we recommend using the yield increment-based FNE estimation, as it provides a reliable and agronomically relevant measure for guiding manure application aimed at reducing chemical N inputs while maintaining crop productivity.

8 December 2025

Dry biomass accumulation of potato (t ha−1) across growth stages under different treatments. The (left panel) illustrates biomass trends in response to varying sheep manure application rates, while the (right panel) shows trends under different chemical nitrogen fertilizer rates. Treatments M180 to M1200 represent manure nitrogen application rates ranging from 180 to 1200 kg N ha−1, and F90 to F600 represent chemical nitrogen fertilizer rates from 90 to 600 kg N ha−1. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted, and means followed by different lowercase letters are significantly different according to Duncan’s multiple range test at p < 0.05.

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Agronomy - ISSN 2073-4395