Special Issue "Design of Agricultural Machinery and Associated Agroecosystem Development"

Dear Colleagues,

Agricultural machines have substantially increased the food production capability of a farmworker, freeing up other people to develop other aspects of modern culture and society. Recently, electronics and computers embedded into agricultural machines and systems have automated many tasks and, coupled with remote sensing and GPS, have allowed the development of precision agriculture, with inputs tuned to the production capability of different areas of a field. Machinery has complemented other biological developments and has contributed to improvements in the quality, quantity, and diversity of agricultural products.

At the same time, there are also negative aspects to intensive mechanization; modern machinery is very expensive, large and heavy field machinery causes soil compaction, and intensive tillage and crop production can have negative impacts on soil health and environmental quality. Clearly, a balance must be achieved between positive and negative aspects.

The aim of this Special Issue is to explore historical and new developments in agricultural machinery; papers are invited on both aspects. In addition to normal machine design and function, papers should address the impact, either positive or negative (or both), of machinery and machinery systems on some aspect of agroecosystem development. Here, an agroecosystem refers to both natural systems, including ecology, soil biology, and environmental quality, and societal aspects, such as food production, sustainability, and social and economic factors.

Dr. Neil B. McLaughlin
Dr. Shixiu Zhang
Dr. Fengjuan Pan
Dr. Aizhen Liang
Dr. Xuewen Chen
Dr. Yan Zhang
Dr. Shuxia Jia
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 2200 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.

• soil compaction
• soil ecology
• environmental quality
• machine soil interaction
• sustainability
• precision agriculture
• crop production