Sky Guardians of Agriculture: Drones for Efficient Plant Health Surveillance
A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Precision and Digital Agriculture".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 25 May 2026 | Viewed by 36
Special Issue Editors
2. College of Water Resources and Architectural Engineering, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China
Interests: UAV; remote sensing; crop monitoring
2. College of Water Resources and Architectural Engineering, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China
Interests: UAV; remote sensing; crop monitoring
2. College of Water Resources and Architectural Engineering, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China
Interests: smart water conservancy; green and intelligent irrigation technologies and equipment; agricultural remote sensing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Modern agriculture faces mounting pressures from climate change and food security demands, necessitating transformative approaches to crop management. Drones, having evolved from basic imaging tools to sophisticated agricultural assets through advances in sensors, artificial intelligence, and automation, now offer unprecedented capabilities for plant health surveillance. This Special Issue compiles cutting-edge research on drone systems designed for efficient, scalable monitoring; diagnosis; and management of plant health across diverse agroecosystems. We seek original research and reviews demonstrating innovations in hyperspectral, multispectral, thermal infrared phenotyping, AI-driven biotic/abiotic stress detection, real-time data processing, autonomous scouting, sensor fusion, and farm management integration. Contributions must exhibit scientific rigor and practical relevance, focusing on early stress detection, precision disease management, nutrient monitoring, health-linked yield prediction, and surveillance efficiency optimization. Submissions covering novel methodologies, validation frameworks, and field-to-algorithm translation are particularly encouraged.
Prof. Dr. Junying Chen
Dr. Jiang Bian
Dr. Xin Hui
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 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
- drones
- hyperspectral
- multispectral
- thermal infrared
- early stress detection
- precision disease management
- nutrient monitoring
- yield prediction
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