Enhancing Crop Yield and Quality: Insights from Precision Agriculture and Agronomic Practices

A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Farming Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2026 | Viewed by 492

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Department of Agroecology and Plant Production, University of Agriculture in Kraków, 31-120 Kraków, Poland
Interests: sustainable crop production; legume crops; oilseed crops; biodiversity; crop modeling; biostimulation
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In the 21st century, climate change presents a major challenge for agriculture. Extreme temperatures and changes in rainfall distribution are affecting crop production. To enhance crop yield and quality in the face of these challenges, scientists are working on creating new varieties of crops, which can be more easily cultivated in extreme environmental conditions, and new agrotechnology, which can increase yield and yield quality whilst maintaining minimal environmental impact.

Precision agriculture is a key approach for increasing crop productivity and quality. This approach uses technology, data and automation to optimize various aspects of agriculture, including seeding, fertilization, irrigation, weed and pest control. Using data from satellites, drones, and sensors, farmers can make more informed decisions about when and where to apply resources. This approach not only saves natural resources but also ensures that the necessary nutrients for plants are applied at the right time, leading to improved yields and quality.

Sustainability is important in the agricultural sector, and adopting sustainable farming practices can significantly increase crop yields and quality in the long term. Sustainable agriculture focuses on protecting the environment, conserving natural resources and promoting biodiversity while maintaining high crop productivity. Important elements of sustainable agriculture are practices that incorporate intercropping, the cultivation of legumes, and catch crops. A key practice of sustainable crop production is well-planned crop rotation that takes into account the cultivation of different groups of crops in succession to interrupt the proliferation of agrophages and improve the physical, chemical and microbiological properties of the soil. Sustainable practices not only contribute to soil regeneration, improving yields of useful crops, but also maintain high-quality soil for future generations.

Dr. Agnieszka Klimek-Kopyra
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • crop yield and quality
  • agroecology
  • precision agriculture
  • agroforestry
  • agronomic practices
  • sustainable crop production
  • cropping systems

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

14 pages, 1998 KiB  
Article
Verification of Agricultural Practices for Winter Pea–Cereals Intercropping
by Agnieszka Klimek-Kopyra, Ewa Hanus-Fajerska, Iwona Kamińska, Tomasz Głąb, Reinhard W. Neugschwandtner and Wiktor Chudzik
Agronomy 2025, 15(9), 2017; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy15092017 - 22 Aug 2025
Abstract
Recently, an urgent need has been identified to increase the biodiversity of the cereal crops that dominate European farmlands. In this aspect, the addition of pea as a component of winter cereals seems justified, but the appropriate selection of the cultivars to create [...] Read more.
Recently, an urgent need has been identified to increase the biodiversity of the cereal crops that dominate European farmlands. In this aspect, the addition of pea as a component of winter cereals seems justified, but the appropriate selection of the cultivars to create a mixture suitable for agricultural practice is probably essential. Therefore, arbitrarily selected winter pea cultivars were intercropped with some chosen cereals in order to assess certain yield parameters using a two-factorial field experiment conducted on brown soil. The studied factors were the cultivar of pea (Pisum sativum), ‘Pandora’ and ‘E.F.B. 33′ respectively, and the cropping system: single crop vs. cereal/legume intercropping mixture. Cereals used were rye (Secale cereale L.) ‘Amber’ and triticale (× Triticosecale) ‘Borwo’. To assess the potential of winter pea in this cultivation system, the yield level, some plant parameters (above- and belowground), and LER and CR indices were applied. Additionally, to demonstrate the effect of intercropping on pea, the root system, root nodulation, and nitrogen uptake efficiency were assessed. It was shown that yield and plant indices were closely related to the intercropping variant used. The key element determining the potential of the cultivated crops was the selection of cultivars. The most productive one was proved pea ‘E.F.B. 33’, which formed the largest number of nodules when intercropped with triticale. Moreover, it was ascertained that the drought period during the formation of nodules negatively affected their structure, which had a rather negative impact on the pea yield. Full article
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