Improving Functioning of Soil–Plant Systems Using the Application of Sustainable and Intelligent Methods

Dear Colleagues,

The interaction of soil and plants plays an important role in water and nutrient dynamics in an ecosystem. The function of nutrients, biomass, and water recycling is important for social, economic, and environmental benefits and also for providing various ecosystem services. Soil quality in the rhizosphere promotes vegetation growth and helps to maintain the functionality of the soil–plant system. The soil–plant system is likely to be damaged due to weak agricultural integrated managements. In order to tackle this, sustainable and intelligent agriculture is promoted that involves new methods of remediation of soil conditions and crop modeling; however, their feasibility in field conditions needs further development. The development of new biomaterials that are economical and also feasible in field applications (in the long term) still needs further exploration. Therefore, applications of sustainable managements and intelligent measurements are necessary in soil–plant systems.

This Special Issue invites original research, technology reports, modeling approaches and methods, and reviews on sustainable management and intelligence in soil–plant systems. The topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

• Sustainable management (e.g., optimized irrigation and fertilizer practices, cropping systems, and agronomic strategies) on the improvement of soil quality, plant growth, productivity, and tolerance to drought;
• Implications of intelligent methods (e.g., sensing techniques, multiple scales of phenotyping platforms) on soil and vegetation health monitoring;
• Interactions between agricultural water/fertilizer management and the environment;
• Interactions between soil and plant in contaminated soils;
• New biomaterials for improving water use efficiency in soil–plant systems;
• Applications of unsaturated soil concept in sustainable agriculture;
• Development of IoT-based devices and APPs for smart agriculture.

Dr. Xuguang Xing
Dr. Ankit Garg
Dr. Long Zhao
Guest Editors

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