Application of Allelopathy in Sustainable Agriculture

Dear Colleagues,

There is an urgent appeal from the European Commission for a green transition in food systems (Farm to Fork strategy), whereby environmentally friendly inputs are required for more sustainable agricultural production. It is our task to search for new tools that contribute to these environmental objectives by replacing, at least partially,  the phytosanitary products derived from chemical synthesis currently used.

An eco-friendly strategy for this global challenge could be to take advantage of allelopathy: the ability of plants, microbes, fungi, algae and other organisms to produce and release a cocktail of compounds capable of positively or negatively influencing biotic and abiotic components that make up the agrosystem. Allelopathy has been recognized as an effective and ecological method for the control of weeds that plague our cropping systems. 

Therefore, the main purpose of this Special Issue is to bring together a collection of studies that update the research progress on the use of allelopathy for weed control in agricultural production, as well as to compile the advances in the physiological and ecological mechanisms of allelopathy in agriculture. We welcome original research papers, reviews, and communications mainly focused on, but not limited to, the following subjects:

• The phytotoxicity of plant extracts.
• Natural compounds as bioherbicides and their interactions.
• The use of allelopathic plants as cover crops, green manures, for intercropping, or in crop rotation.
• Fate of allelochemicals in the agricultural soil.
• Breeding of allelopathic crops and cultivars.

Dr. Carolina G. Puig
Dr. Nuria Pedrol
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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 semimonthly 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.