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Agronomy
Special Issues
Water Deficit and Its Impact on Crop Yield
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Water Deficit and Its Impact on Crop Yield

A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Water Use and Irrigation".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2026) | Viewed by 376

Editors

Dr. Cristina Patanè

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Istituto per la BioEconomia (IBE), 95126 Catania, Italy
Interests: seed germination; abiotic stresses; deficit irrigation; agronomy; crop management; energy biomass crops; applied plant sciences; plant breeding; agrobiodiversity; agroecology and soil biology; biofuels; biomaterials
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Nenghan Wan

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Agronomy, 2004 Throckmorton Plant Sciences Center, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506, USA
Interests: climate; maize

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Water deficit is one of the most devastating abiotic stresses, severely limiting agricultural productivity worldwide. Research has consistently shown that insufficient water supply during specific phases of crop development decreases crop growth, reduces yield, and causes significant economic losses as well as threatened food security. With drought frequency and severity projected to rise under climate change, understanding water deficit impacts has become an important theme in agricultural sciences. The main aim of this Special Issue is to present work on research on the mechanisms, assessment, and management of water deficit stress in crops. This Special Issue may include both general overview papers and original research papers addressing physiological responses; modelling and simulation of yield variability and response under water deficit; remote sensing and data-driven approaches and adaptation strategies at field, regional, and global scales. Through these contributions, this Special Issue seeks to provide insights into sustainable water-use efficiently and improve crop productivity under changing climates.

Dr. Cristina Patanè
Dr. Nenghan Wan
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-anonymized 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

  • drought
  • water-use efficiency
  • soil moisture
  • climate change

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

26 pages, 5827 KB  
Article
Unraveling the Effects of Environment, Deficit Irrigation and Genotype on Yield, Sensory Quality and Antioxidants in Tomato: A Multivariate Analysis
by Valeria Cafaro, Alessandra Pellegrino and Cristina Patanè
Agronomy 2026, 16(14), 1343; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy16141343 - 14 Jul 2026
Abstract
Tomato is a high-value crop whose productivity and quality are threatened by climate change in semi-arid Mediterranean areas. This study examined the effects of environment, deficit irrigation (DI), and genotype on tomato yield as well as sensory and antioxidant characteristics. Field experiments were [...] Read more.
Tomato is a high-value crop whose productivity and quality are threatened by climate change in semi-arid Mediterranean areas. This study examined the effects of environment, deficit irrigation (DI), and genotype on tomato yield as well as sensory and antioxidant characteristics. Field experiments were conducted over two consecutive seasons (2023–2024) at two sites in eastern Sicily differing in soil texture (clayey and sandy). Five genotypes—including two old local landraces of long shelf-life tomato and three hybrids—were subjected to three irrigation regimes based on the replenishment of crop evapotranspiration (ETc): 33% (I33, low irrigation rate), 66% (I66, moderate irrigation rate), and 99% (I99, high irrigation rate, control). Yield was maximized in clayey soil (+55% in 2023 and +44% in 2024) and under the I99 regime (48.48 Mg ha−1). Among the genotypes, the most productive were the hybrids HL1 (‘Lycomech’, high-lycopene tomato) and MP (‘Febo’, mini-plum tomato), with yields exceeding 40 Mg ha−1. Overall, old landraces showed lower productivity. Sensory quality (total solids—TS; total soluble solids—TSS; titratable acidity—TA; TSS/TA) and antioxidant quality (total phenols—TPs; flavonoids—Flavs; antioxidant activity—AA) were superior in sandy soil. Regarding irrigation, the highest overall quality was achieved with the I33 regime. The moderate irrigation regime in I66 limited the yield reduction compared to I33 and improved TSS, reducing sugars, TPs, Flavs, vitamin C, and AA compared to I99, although lycopene content decreased. Among the tomato cultivars examined, old local landraces, specifically the ‘Vulcano’ landrace, demonstrated greater stability and drought resilience than the three hybrids, maintaining their sensory and antioxidant quality across different environments and water regimes. Multivariate data analysis, using principal component analysis (PCA) and K-means clustering, was conducted to assess the impact of experimental factors on the studied traits and to identify groupings based on similarities. In conclusion, local landraces of long shelf-life tomato appear better adapted to conditions of low soil water availability than the new hybrids. DI restoring the 66% ETc offers a viable compromise between fruit quantity and quality for these old genotypes, potentially facilitating their reintroduction into sustainable, low-input cropping systems in Mediterranean regions. DI also represents a viable agronomic option for the new hybrids, enabling the maintenance of satisfactory yield and fruit quality levels while simultaneously saving significant amounts of irrigation water. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water Deficit and Its Impact on Crop Yield)
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