Soil Health and Crop Management in Conservation Agriculture

Dear Colleagues,

Healthy soil is the foundation of productive, profitable, and sustainable agriculture. Good soil and crop management practices can help to reduce erosion, maximize water infiltration, improve nutrient cycling, reduce input costs, and finally improve the resilience of ecosystem services. Minimizing soil disturbances, maximizing soil cover and biodiversity, crop rotation, and crop-livestock integration are some of the vital approaches to soil health and crop management in conservation agriculture. Conservation agriculture practices further restore soil organic matter and increase beneficial soil microbial populations, ensuring both economic and environmental benefits. Adoption of soil-health-building regenerative farming systems based on the principles of conservation agriculture can also help to reclaim degraded soils and farmlands.

Agricultural practices that protect soils, restore soil productivity, increase water and nutrient use efficiency, and sustain crop production are the needs of the 21st century. We therefore invite research and review articles on various soil and crop management practices, cropping systems, water and nutrient use efficiency, soil organic matter, soil carbon, and soil health. This Special Issue also entertains papers on conservation agriculture (minimum tillage, crop diversification, crop rotation, multiple cropping, etc.) and innovative crop management practices that improve ecosystem services, while simultaneously increasing crop yields and farm profits.

Dr. Sushil Thapa
Dr. Qingwu Xue
Dr. Ghulam Abbas Shah
Guest Editors

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