Search for Articles:
Title / Keyword
Author / Affiliation / Email
Journal
Article Type
 
 
Advanced Search
 
Section
Special Issue
Volume
Issue
Number
Page
 
5.5
2.5
Journals
Applied Sciences
Special Issues
Advanced Plant Biotechnology in Sustainable Agriculture—2nd Edition
applsci-logo
Submit to Special Issue Submit Abstract to Special Issue Review for Applied Sciences Propose a Special Issue

Journal Menu

► Journal Menu

Journal Browser

► Journal Browser
share announcement

Advanced Plant Biotechnology in Sustainable Agriculture—2nd Edition

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Agricultural Science and Technology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 March 2026 | Viewed by 3370

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Anzhen Qin

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Farmland Irrigation, Chinese Academy of Agriculture Sciences, Xinxiang 453003, China
Interests: irrigation water use; regulated and deficit irrigation; drip and sprinkler irrigation; remote sensing in agriculture
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Dongfeng Ning

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Farmland Irrigation, Chinese Academy of Agriculture Sciences, Xinxiang 453003, China
Interests: plant nutrition; plant regulation; fertigation system; greenhouse gases emission; crop production
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Advanced plant biotechnology includes a series of innovative, scientific, and technical methods applied to guarantee food security. Currently, food security has been facing a variety of challenges, including growing populations, water shortages, yield stagnation, climate change, and the frequent incidence of biotic and abiotic stresses, posing a severe threat to sustainable agriculture. In recent years, grain yields have nearly approached the ceiling of maximum yield potential under conventional technology, while advanced biotechnology, including genetic breeding engineering, cropping system strategies, remote sensing technology, disease detection and prevention, smart irrigation and fertilization, bioregulation, plant transformation, etc., has emerged and developed to make plants resistant to droughts, floods, pests and diseases, and other abiotic as well as biotic stresses. Advanced biotechnology in sustainable agriculture should effectively improve global agricultural productivity, guarantee food security, and alleviate human poverty. This Special Issue, “Advanced Plant Biotechnology in Sustainable Agriculture—2nd Edition”, aims to provide an overview of the latest developments in major fields of advanced plant biotechnology. With its paramount importance in achieving the dual goals of high-quality food production and effective environmental protection, we welcome original research articles and reviews concerning all aspects related to advanced plant biotechnology in sustainable agriculture.

Dr. Anzhen Qin
Dr. Dongfeng Ning
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. Applied Sciences 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 2400 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

  • genetic engineering
  • cropping systems
  • smart fertigation
  • remote sensing
  • climate change

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

  • Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
  • Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
  • Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
  • External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
  • Reprint: MDPI Books provides the opportunity to republish successful Special Issues in book format, both online and in print.

Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Related Special Issue

Published Papers (3 papers)

Download All Papers
Order results
Result details
Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

Jump to: Other

20 pages, 9075 KB  
Article
CatBoost Improves Inversion Accuracy of Plant Water Status in Winter Wheat Using Ratio Vegetation Index
by Bingyan Dong, Shouchen Ma, Zhenhao Gao and Anzhen Qin
Appl. Sci. 2025, 15(21), 11363; https://doi.org/10.3390/app152111363 - 23 Oct 2025
Viewed by 574
Abstract
The accurate monitoring of crop water status is critical for optimizing irrigation strategies in winter wheat. Compared with satellite remote sensing, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology offers superior spatial resolution, temporal flexibility, and controllable data acquisition, making it an ideal choice for the [...] Read more.
The accurate monitoring of crop water status is critical for optimizing irrigation strategies in winter wheat. Compared with satellite remote sensing, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology offers superior spatial resolution, temporal flexibility, and controllable data acquisition, making it an ideal choice for the small-scale monitoring of crop water status. During 2023–2025, field experiments were conducted to predict crop water status using UAV images in the North China Plain (NCP). Thirteen vegetation indices were calculated and their correlations with observed crop water content (CWC) and equivalent water thickness (EWT) were analyzed. Four machine learning (ML) models, namely, random forest (RF), decision tree (DT), LightGBM, and CatBoost, were evaluated for their inversion accuracy with regard to CWC and EWT in the 2024–2025 growing season of winter wheat. The results show that the ratio vegetation index (RVI, NIR/R) exhibited the strongest correlation with CWC (R = 0.97) during critical growth stages. Among the ML models, CatBoost demonstrated superior performance, achieving R2 values of 0.992 (CWC) and 0.962 (EWT) in training datasets, with corresponding RMSE values of 0.012% and 0.1907 g cm−2, respectively. The model maintained robust performance in testing (R2 = 0.893 for CWC, and R2 = 0.961 for EWT), outperforming conventional approaches like RF and DT. High-resolution (5 cm) inversion maps successfully identified spatial variability in crop water status across experimental plots. The CatBoost-RVI framework proved particularly effective during the booting and flowering stages, providing reliable references for precision irrigation management in the NCP. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Plant Biotechnology in Sustainable Agriculture—2nd Edition)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

23 pages, 1926 KB  
Article
Photosynthetic Parameters of Melons in Response to NO3− and NH4+ as N Sources and Irrigation with Brackish Water High in Na+, Ca2+, and Cl−
by Guilherme Ferreira de Brito, Edivan Rodrigues de Souza, Ceres Duarte Guedes Cabral de Almeida, Geovani Soares de Lima, Thieres George Freire da Silva, Marcos Vinícius da Silva, Maria Beatriz Ferreira, Ênio Farias de França e Silva, Daniel da Costa Dantas and José Amilton Santos Júnior
Appl. Sci. 2025, 15(17), 9601; https://doi.org/10.3390/app15179601 - 31 Aug 2025
Viewed by 857
Abstract
High levels of dissolved salts in irrigation water sources limit melon cultivation in northeastern Brazil. In this context, nitrogen fertilization has been employed as one strategy to alleviate the effects of salt stress on plants. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of [...] Read more.
High levels of dissolved salts in irrigation water sources limit melon cultivation in northeastern Brazil. In this context, nitrogen fertilization has been employed as one strategy to alleviate the effects of salt stress on plants. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of different nitrogen sources on cantaloupe melon cultivation under fertigation and irrigation with water of the same salinity and different cationic concentrations (Na+ and Ca+). The research consisted of two experiments, each following a randomized complete block design in a 4 × 2 factorial arrangement with four replicates. The treatments included four levels of electrical conductivity of the nutrient solution (2.0; 3.0; 4.0; and 5.0 dS m−1) and two nitrogen sources of different origins: NO3− [Ca(NO3) and KNO3] and NH4+ [CH4N2O and NH4H2PO4]. The following factors were chlorophyll pigments, chlorophyll a fluorescence, and fruit weight. Nitrogen fertilization with NH4+ mitigated salt stress by increasing the synthesis of chlorophyll a and carotenoids in plants irrigated with NaCl-based saline water. Furthermore, there was no influence of nitrogen sources on chlorophyll a fluorescence. Finally, NO3− fertilization reduced the effects of salt stress on the leaf mass ratio, specific leaf area under Ca2+ fertigation, and relative growth rate of leaf area in melons under cationic prevalences of Na+ or Ca2+ (associated with Cl−). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Plant Biotechnology in Sustainable Agriculture—2nd Edition)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

Other

Jump to: Research

10 pages, 727 KB  
Brief Report
An Efficient Rice Virus-Induced Gene Silencing System Mediated by Wheat Dwarf Virus
by Yaqian Zhang, Xiaowan Zhang, Lu Yu, Yijie Yan, Senzhen Zhu, Wanting Huang, Xian Zhang, Cong Dang and Dawei Xue
Appl. Sci. 2025, 15(11), 5818; https://doi.org/10.3390/app15115818 - 22 May 2025
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1240
Abstract
The virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) technique can effectively inhibit systemic viral infection by down-regulating plant endogenous gene expression, and it has become an important tool to study plant gene function. However, few studies have reported that wheat dwarf virus (WDV), which enables high-throughput [...] Read more.
The virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) technique can effectively inhibit systemic viral infection by down-regulating plant endogenous gene expression, and it has become an important tool to study plant gene function. However, few studies have reported that wheat dwarf virus (WDV), which enables high-throughput gene silencing, could be used in a rice VIGS system. In this study, a VIGS vector system was constructed based on WDV, and successfully silenced the Phytoene desaturase gene and the rice blast resistance gene Pi21 in rice. Pi21-silenced plants showed significantly increased resistance to rice blast, significantly reduced lesion area, and did not show high disease symptoms (grade 8–9). In addition, the WDV vector has the advantages of rapid infection, high proliferation, and an unconformity genome, and has little influence on rice growth and development. This study validates the effectiveness of the WDV-VIGS system in rice gene function studies and provides a new gene silencing tool for blast resistance breeding. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Plant Biotechnology in Sustainable Agriculture—2nd Edition)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:
 
Displaying articles 1-3
Back to TopTop