Advances in Crop Irrigation System and Management
A special issue of Plants (ISSN 2223-7747). This special issue belongs to the section "Crop Physiology and Crop Production".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 March 2026 | Viewed by 1
Special Issue Editors
Interests: soil; water; plant management
Interests: fruit science; mineral nutrition; stress
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The growing global demand for food, coupled with increasing water scarcity and the impacts of climate change, places unprecedented pressure on irrigated agriculture. Traditional irrigation methods are often insufficient to meet these challenges, necessitating a paradigm shift towards more intelligent, efficient, and sustainable water management systems. True advancement lies not only in developing new technologies but also in their integration with deep ecological and physiological understanding.
This Special Issue, "Advances in Crop Irrigation System and Management", aims to showcase research at the forefront of this transformation. We invite contributions that connect cutting-edge engineering and data science with fundamental plant biology and soil science. We are particularly interested in studies that explore precision irrigation through AI and IoT, innovative strategies like controlled deficit irrigation, the safe use of non-conventional water resources, and the physiological and molecular responses of plants to different irrigation regimes. Our goal is to assemble a collection of high-impact works that provide actionable solutions and chart a course toward a future of resilient and resource-efficient agriculture.
The Special Issue should also include research involving the use of Artificial Intelligence as an essential tool for promoting sustainability in the rural production sector, such as the use of machine learning algorithms that can predict optimal water and nutrient intake and monitor irrigation systems, enabling the greater efficiency/optimization of water resource use. It is important to highlight the applicability of Artificial Intelligence in the use of sensors to collect field data of various types, from crop water needs to pest attacks, assisting producers in decision-making.
In arid and semiarid regions of the world, irregular and low-intensity rainfall prevails throughout the year, in addition to high evapotranspiration demands, which directly impact water bodies with high salt content. The use of this water in irrigated agriculture results in saline and water stress for crops. Therefore, to enable irrigated agriculture to fulfill its important role as a food and fiber supplier to the global population, this Special Issue hopes to contribute to the dissemination of ongoing research aimed at developing advanced technologies to mitigate saline and water stress in irrigated crop cultivation.
Finally, it should be noted that in addition to scientific articles, this Special Issue welcomes the submissions of literature reviews, considering these to be of paramount importance for supporting the development of future research, while also providing significant benefits to authors in terms of the potential for increased citations of their scientific work.
Dr. Carlos Alberto Vieira de Azevedo
Dr. Walter Esfrain Pereira
Dr. Vera Lucia Antunes de Lima
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. Plants 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 2700 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
- precision irrigation
- water use efficiency (WUE)
- remote sensing
- internet of things (IoT)
- machine learning
- water stress
- physiology salinity management
- deficit irrigation
- non-conventional
- water resources
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