Toward Water-Smart Cereal Production: Agronomic Innovations for Food System Sustainability

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to present this Special Issue dedicated to advancing water-smart agronomic practices in cereal crop production, addressing the growing challenges of water scarcity, climate variability, and sustainable food security.

Cereal crops—wheat, rice, maize, barley, sorghum, and millet—form the backbone of global nutrition, yet their production accounts for the largest share of agricultural freshwater consumption worldwide. As water resources become increasingly strained and climate-induced drought events grow more frequent, transforming cereal agronomy toward resource-efficient production systems has become a defining priority.

This Special Issue invites contributions exploring agronomic strategies that enhance water use efficiency across diverse cereal production environments, including deficit irrigation scheduling, soil moisture conservation, drought-resilient variety deployment, and precision agriculture tools such as remote sensing and IoT-based monitoring. Contributions bridging agronomic performance with broader sustainability outcomes — reduced water footprints, ecosystem preservation, and climate adaptation — are especially encouraged.

We welcome original research articles, reviews, meta-analyses, and field-based case studies from both rain-fed and irrigated systems. We look forward to building together an impactful collection advancing science-based pathways for water-smart cereal production.

Dr. Mohamed Houssemeddine Sellami
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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