Application of Biostimulants and Bioeffectors on Crop Production

Dear Colleagues, 

Biostimulants include organic compounds and microorganisms that are applied to plants or soils to improve crop yield, quality, vigour, and tolerance to insects, diseases, weeds, or abiotic stresses. Thus, these unique bioactive compounds eventually contribute to the robustness of soil and plants, whilst enhancing productivity even in harsh environmental conditions and despite climate change. Bioeffectors are active naturally occurring compounds or viable microorganisms which directly or indirectly affect plant performance and thus have the potential to reduce fertilizer and agrochemical use in crop production. Allelopathy and allelochemicals are related concepts, according to which bioactive substances produced by plants or microorganism influence other organisms. With an increasing world population, farmers will need to increase crop production either by increasing the amount of cultivated fields or by enhancing productivity through the adoption of new or improved agricultural techniques. In effect, biostimulants and bioeffectors can be further explored to improve crop productivity whilst ensuring the sustainabilty of the environment.

This Special Issue will focus on the effects of biostimulants and bioeffectors on plant growth and crop production. Novel research, reviews, and technical articles of biostimulants and bioeffectors function, from the chemical level to the field level, toward their effective use in future agriculture are welcome.

Prof. Dr. Yoshiharu Fujii
Guest Editor

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 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.