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Horticulturae
Special Issues
Optimize Nutrient Cycling to Improve Soil Fertility and Plant Productivity
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Optimize Nutrient Cycling to Improve Soil Fertility and Plant Productivity

A special issue of Horticulturae (ISSN 2311-7524). This special issue belongs to the section "Plant Nutrition".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 May 2025 | Viewed by 1197

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Meng Xu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
State Key Laboratory of Efficient Utilization of Arid and Semi-Arid Arable Land in Northern China, The Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, China
Interests: plant nutrition; plant biostimulants; fertilizer; fertilization zinc cycling
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Francisco Garcia-Sanchez

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Plant Nutrition, CEBAS-CSIC, Campus Universitario de Espinardo, 30100 Murcia, Spain
Interests: plant nutrition; fertilization; abiotic stress; trees; horticultural plants; irrigation; hydroponic system
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Horticultural crops, whether vegetable crops, fruit trees, or medicinal and ornamental plants, need large amounts of available soil nutrients to ensure that their nutritional needs are met. However, the excessive input of nutrients and an unbalanced nutrient ratio not only make it difficult for plant roots to absorb the necessary nutrients for healthy growth and optimal yield but also result in a decline in soil quality and environmental pollution within the farmland ecosystem. To enhance plant productivity and sustainability through optimizing nutrient cycling in the soil–plant system, various measures such as deep ploughing, crop rotation, straw return, green manure mulching, biostimulants, high-efficiency fertilizer products, and agronomic practices have been tailored to all-around scenario-oriented (soil-specific, crop-oriented, and climate-sensitive) requirements. The mechanism process of nutrient cycling in various scenarios has also been explored to serve sustainable innovative development ideas and demonstration applications. Research articles, reviews, short notes, and opinion articles focused on the application and mechanism of soil–plant nutrients to horticultural plants are welcome to be submitted to our Special Issue, entitled “Optimize Nutrient Cycling to Improve Soil Fertility and Plant Productivity”.

Dr. Meng Xu
Dr. Francisco Garcia-Sanchez
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. 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 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.

Keywords

  • nutrient fate
  • soil fertility
  • plant nutrition
  • soil–plant interaction
  • stress condition
  • fertilizer
  • fertilization
  • sustainable tillage

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

10 pages, 205 KiB  
Article
The Effects of Potassium on Plant Nutrient Concentration, Plant Development, and Rhizoctonia Rot (Rhizoctonia solani) in Pepper
by Ümit Bayındır and Zeliha Küçükyumuk
Horticulturae 2025, 11(5), 516; https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae11050516 - 10 May 2025
Viewed by 247
Abstract
Potassium has been identified as a vital nutrient for plant growth and functions. Studies have demonstrated its capacity to mitigate the severity of diseases by accelerating seed maturation and promoting robust root system development. In this study, we aimed to determine how increasing [...] Read more.
Potassium has been identified as a vital nutrient for plant growth and functions. Studies have demonstrated its capacity to mitigate the severity of diseases by accelerating seed maturation and promoting robust root system development. In this study, we aimed to determine how increasing potassium doses affect the nutrient content, dry weight, root weight, and resistance to Rhizoctonia rot of the pepper plant. Pepper seedlings were used as plant material, and potassium sulfate was employed as the potassium fertilizer in this study. The experiment involved applying four different potassium doses (0, 50, 100, and 150 kg ha−1) to pepper seedlings, along with RS0 (control) and RS1 (diseased plant) in four replicates. At the end of the study, analyses of the plants’ nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), magnesium (Mg), calcium (Ca), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), and boron (B) content, dry weights, and root weights were performed, in addition to disease assessments. An increase in N, P, K, Fe, and B content was observed with applied potassium doses, while a decrease in Mg content was noted. No significant change was detected in Cu content in pepper leaves, and the change in Mn content was not found to be statistically significant. An increase in plant dry weights was determined based on the applied treatments. The results indicated that plants subjected to potassium exhibited resistance to disease, an increase in root weights, and overall better conditions compared to samples without potassium. The best results in the experiments were achieved with the application of 150 kg ha−1 K2SO4. It was observed that certain rates of potassium had positive effects on disease factors by suppressing Rhizoctonia rot and can be used for biological control. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Optimize Nutrient Cycling to Improve Soil Fertility and Plant Productivity)
20 pages, 4522 KiB  
Article
Intercropping Between Panax ginseng and Arisaema amurense Improves Ginseng Quality by Improving Soil Properties and Microbial Communities
by Bochen Lv, Hai Sun, Weiyu Cao, Jiapeng Zhu, Hao Liang, Hongjie Long, Yanmei Cui, Cai Shao and Yayu Zhang
Horticulturae 2025, 11(2), 172; https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae11020172 - 6 Feb 2025
Viewed by 668
Abstract
The imbalance in soil microcosm systems caused by the long-term monoculture of ginseng is the main cause of continuous cropping disorder in ginseng, an important factor limiting the development of the ginseng industry. The ecological intercropping pattern of medicinal plants is a planting [...] Read more.
The imbalance in soil microcosm systems caused by the long-term monoculture of ginseng is the main cause of continuous cropping disorder in ginseng, an important factor limiting the development of the ginseng industry. The ecological intercropping pattern of medicinal plants is a planting technology that achieves efficient, high-quality and sustainable production of Chinese medicinal materials by increasing the diversity of farmland ecosystems and improving the stability of soil micro-ecosystems, thereby alleviating the continuous cropping disorder of medicinal plants. However, there remains a lack of research on the ecological intercropping cultivation of ginseng. We constructed a Panax ginseng/Arisaema amurense intercropping model to explore the changes in soil nutrients, enzyme activities, soil microbial communities and ginseng quality. The findings of this study demonstrated that intercropping could decelerate the acidification process of soils and effectively increased 37.02% of soil organic matter, 32.39% of total nitrogen, 5.18% of total potassium and 9.03% of available phosphorus contents in ginseng inter-root soil compared with monocropping. The results revealed that intercropping increased the soil urease and soil acid phosphatase activities while reducing the soil sucrase activity in the inter-root soil. Additionally, intercropping elevated the α-diversity of the inter-root soil bacterial community and diminished the composition and abundance of the fungal community. The intercropping exhibited a pronounced inhibitory impact on two common genera of pathogenic fungi, Fusarium and Cylindrocarpon Furthermore, the total ginsenosides and diverse monomer ginsenosides present in the roots of intercropped ginseng exhibited varying degrees of enhancement. The results of the analyses indicated that the observed increase in ginsenoside content under intercropping was attributable to interactions between soil microorganisms, including the Prevotella_7, Penicillium, Humicola and Deconica, and soil factors such as SOM, NH4+–N, AP and S-UE. Thus, implementing P. ginseng/A. amurense ecological intercropping can effectively mitigate soil acidification, enhance soil nutrient effectiveness, optimize soil microbial community composition and augment ginsenoside content. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Optimize Nutrient Cycling to Improve Soil Fertility and Plant Productivity)
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