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Agronomy
Special Issues
Effective Soil and Water Conservation Practices in Agriculture—2nd Edition
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Effective Soil and Water Conservation Practices in Agriculture—2nd Edition

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

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2025 | Viewed by 582

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Koffi Djaman

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Plant and Environmental Science, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003, USA
Interests: reference and crop evapotranspiration; irrigation management; cropping systems; crop physiology; crop response to water and fertilizer
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Following the success of the first Special Issue titled “Effective Soil and Water Conservation Practices in Agriculture” (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/agronomy/special_issues/82B0OHMH08) in Agronomy, the Editorial Office is pleased to launch a second edition.

The increasing trend in the world population, which is projected to be approximately 10 billion people by 2050, is putting pressure on the limited soil and water resources and food production under a changing climate. Soil and water resources are being degraded through agricultural expansion and intensification by means of a range of natural and anthropogenic factors, which create a non-balanced system and decreases its sustainability. To tackle these challenges, different strategies have been investigated and used by scientists and crop producers to improve soil and water management for resource conservation. A range of practices are used to improve crop selection to enhance their abiotic and biotic stress tolerance and increase their resilience, such as smart agriculture, precision water management, and no-till and conservation tillage. In addition, work is carried out to utilize the available land resources more efficiently in order to improve and increase the crop productivity per unit of input (e.g., water and crop nutrients) and promote sustainable agriculture and the protection of the environment. Finally, there is focus on the efficient use of surface and groundwater, protection of natural ecosystems, soil protection, erosion control associated with different tillage practices, reducing sediment transport, and cover cropping.

Dr. Koffi Djaman
Guest Editor

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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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 monthly 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

  • agricultural sustainability
  • crop evapotranspiration
  • precision agriculture
  • crop productivity
  • crop rotation
  • soil moisture sensors
  • conservation tillage
  • soil erosion
  • buffer strips
  • climate change

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Related Special Issue

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

19 pages, 2290 KiB  
Article
Optimizing Microbial Composition in Soil Macroaggregates Enhances Nitrogen Supply Through Long-Term Straw Return
by Lei Xu and Ganghua Li
Agronomy 2025, 15(5), 1208; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy15051208 - 16 May 2025
Viewed by 64
Abstract
Soil nitrogen (N) is critical for crop yield. Although previous studies have shown that straw return enhances soil mineral N availability, the response of soil aggregate microbes to straw return and its impact on soil mineral N availability remains unclear. We conducted a [...] Read more.
Soil nitrogen (N) is critical for crop yield. Although previous studies have shown that straw return enhances soil mineral N availability, the response of soil aggregate microbes to straw return and its impact on soil mineral N availability remains unclear. We conducted a 13-year experiment to explore how soil N mineralization potential, fungi, and bacteria within soil aggregates responded to straw return. Our findings indicated that straw return significantly increased mineral N concentrations in soil macroaggregates, with no statistically significant effect observed on microaggregate composition. We observed increased microbial community α-diversity, enhanced co-occurrence network stability, and an increase in functional groups associated with N (nitrate respiration, denitrification, nitrite denitrification) and carbon (saprotrophs, saprotroph–symbiotrophs, patho-saprotrophs) cycling within the aggregates. Additionally, microorganisms in macroaggregates were influenced by total N, while those in microaggregates were affected by soil total organic carbon and C–N ratio. A sensitivity network analysis identified specific microorganisms responding to straw return. Within macroaggregates, microbial community shifts explained 42.88% of mineral N variation, with bacterial and fungal β-diversity contributing 27.82% and 12.58%, respectively. Moreover, straw return upregulated N-cycling genes (N ammonification: sub, ureC, and chiA; nitrification: amoA-AOB; denitrification: nirK, nirS, nosZ, norB, and narG; and N fixation: nifH) in macroaggregates. Partial least squares path modeling revealed that N availability in macroaggregates was mainly driven by ammonification, with bacterial β-diversity explaining 23.22% and fungal β-diversity 15.16% of the variation. Our study reveals that macroaggregates, which play a crucial role in soil N supply, are highly sensitive to tillage practices. This finding provides a practical approach to reducing reliance on synthetic N fertilizers by promoting microbial-mediated N cycling, while sustaining high crop yields in intensive agricultural systems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Effective Soil and Water Conservation Practices in Agriculture—2nd Edition)
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