Agricultural Soil Bioremediation: Application Potential of Microorganisms
A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Soil and Plant Nutrition".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 August 2026 | Viewed by 282
Special Issue Editors
Interests: mycorrhizal ecology; heavy metal; pioneer plants
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: soil microbial ecology; nitrogen cycling; antibiotic resistome; organic pollutant degradation; heavy metal stabilization by soil microbes
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Agricultural soil degradation caused by salinization, organic compounds, and heavy metal pollution poses a global threat to food security and ecosystem health. Historically, bioremediation has relied on the natural capacity of microorganisms to degrade pollutants, with more than 200 microbial species identified for hydrocarbon degradation alone. Recent advances have focused on improving microbial efficacy through the design of microbial consortia, the use of carrier materials (e.g., biochar), and synergistic plant–microbe interactions.
This Special Issue highlights innovative microbial-based strategies for soil restoration. It covers bioaugmentation using immobilized or lyophilized microbial consortia, synergistic biochar–microbe systems, and field-scale applications in degraded soils, including saline–alkali lands and sites contaminated with organic pollutants or heavy metals. The scope extends to microbial community dynamics, functional gene expression (e.g., alkB), and eco-engineered solutions for sustainable agriculture.
Emerging studies focus on optimizing microbial viability and efficiency through novel immobilization techniques (e.g., alginate beads containing oxygen-releasing compounds) and acid-modified biochar carriers, which can increase bacterial colonization by 50%. Real-time monitoring of parameters such as dissolved oxygen and pH in slurry systems enables dynamic control of remediation processes. Furthermore, microbiome engineering—for example, leveraging pre-exposed soils to enrich pollutant-degrading microbes—has been shown to accelerate pesticide breakdown (e.g., reducing the half-life of glyphosate by 45–52%).
We invite contributions on the following:
- The development of microbial consortia and formulation technologies (e.g., ready-to-use lyophilized products);
- Field studies demonstrating the restoration of crop productivity in low-yield soils using microbial strategies;
- Microbial response mechanisms under pollutant stress;
- Mechanistic insights into pollutant degradation pathways and microbe–plant interactions;
- Lifecycle assessments and economic analyses of microbial remediation frameworks.
Both original research and review articles that address scalability and ecological impacts are welcome.
Dr. Liang Shi
Dr. Xuesong Luo
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. Agronomy 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.
Keywords
- heavy metals
- organic pollutants
- bioremediation
- nanotechnology
- microbiome engineering
- microbial response mechanisms
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