Smart Technologies for Horticultural Production

Dear Colleagues,

Global horticulture is at a transformative crossroads. Rising demand for high-quality fruits, vegetables, and ornamental plants—coupled with escalating labor shortages, climate variability, and the pressing need for resource-efficient production—calls for a fundamental shift in how horticultural crops are cultivated and managed. Protected and controlled-environment horticulture—including greenhouses, plant factories, and high tunnels—has emerged as a vital production paradigm that can overcome natural constraints and enable year-round stable output. Yet, these intensive systems also impose higher demands on precision management, environmental control, and operational efficiency that traditional manual approaches can no longer adequately meet.

In recent years, smart technologies have shown tremendous potential to revolutionize horticultural production. The convergence of artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT), advanced sensing systems, robotics, and data-driven decision-making is reshaping crop cultivation from mechanization to intelligence and from automation to full autonomy. Robotic platforms for harvesting, transplanting, spraying, and crop monitoring are being deployed at increasing scales, while intelligent machinery and equipment designed for protected environments are advancing operational precision and reducing labor intensity. Meanwhile, digital twins, edge computing, and machine vision systems are enabling real-time diagnostics and predictive management, laying the groundwork for the next generation of sustainable horticultural production.

This Special Issue aims to present and disseminate the most recent advances related to smart technologies and intelligent machinery for horticultural production, with a particular emphasis on protected and controlled-environment systems. We invite contributions addressing novel methodologies, system architectures, experimental validations, and practical applications that bridge the gap between cutting-edge engineering and horticultural science.

Topics of interest for publication include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Intelligent machinery and robotic systems for greenhouse and plant factory operations (e.g., transplanting, grafting, pruning, pollination,and harvesting robots);
• AI-based crop monitoring, phenotyping, and growth modeling in protected horticulture;
• IoT-enabled environmental sensing and climate control systems for horticultural facilities;
• Machine vision and deep learning for pest and disease detection, fruit quality assessment, and yield prediction;
• Smart irrigation, fertigation, and variable-rate application technologies;
• Digital-twin- and simulation-based approaches for horticultural facility management.

We look forward to receiving your contributions that advance the science and practice of smart horticultural production.

Dr. Xinting Ding
Dr. Dalong Zhang
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-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Horticulturae 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 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.