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New Insights in Production and Utilization of Green Manure Crops
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New Insights in Production and Utilization of Green Manure Crops

A special issue of Plants (ISSN 2223-7747). This special issue belongs to the section "Plant Nutrition".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 October 2026 | Viewed by 923

Editors

Dr. Jia Liu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Soil and Fertilizer and Resources and Environment, Jiangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nanchang 330200, China
Interests: production and utilization of green manure crops; acidified soil amelioration and utilization
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Guopeng Zhou

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Resources and Environment, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei 230036, China
Interests: green manure and soil health; greenhouse gas mitigation; nutrient loss reduction
Dr. Ming Liu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 211135, China
Interests: soil organic matter transformation; soil degradation amelioration; remediation technology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Dabin Zhang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Natural Resources and Environment, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China
Interests: mechanisms for improving nutrient use efficiency; soil fertility; crop productivity through green manure crops in drylands

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Green manure crops embody a cornerstone of traditional Chinese agriculture, sustaining farmland fertility and agricultural productivity for millennia. In the 21st century, they reclaim prominence in modern agriculture as organic nutrient sources for crops, improving their yield and quality, enhancing cultivated land, and protecting the agricultural environment. Currently, green manure crops exhibit broad application prospects across major soil types in China, including acidified red soils in the south, coastal and inland saline–alkaline soils, and black soils in the northeast. They have been widely integrated into diverse cropping systems in paddy fields, drylands, orchards, and vegetable fields, and have become an indispensable component of modern agriculture.

To synthesize recent research advances in green manure crops, this Special Issue welcomes original research articles, comprehensive reviews, and perspective papers. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: identification of potential green manure species and their physiological traits and nutrient-use efficiencies; role of green manures in reducing chemical fertilizer use and improving fertilizer efficiency; their effects on enhancing crop yield and quality; their contribution to improving cultivated land quality; their impact on farmland carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas mitigation; their application in controlling agricultural non-point source pollution; and their use in remediating contaminated farmlands. The overarching goal is to advance the production and utilization of green manure crops from traditional, experience-based practices toward modern, science-based approaches, thereby providing both theoretical support and practical paradigms for the sustainable intensification of agriculture in China and globally.

Dr. Jia Liu
Dr. Guopeng Zhou
Dr. Ming Liu
Dr. Dabin 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. 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

  • green manure crops
  • soil fertility
  • soil carbon and nitrogen transformation
  • nutrient use efficiency
  • carbon sequestration
  • greenhouse gas mitigation
  • nutrient loss
  • heavy metal accumulation

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

21 pages, 2564 KB  
Article
Impact of Several Green Manure Species on the Physicochemical Characteristics, Enzymatic Activities, and Microbial Community Composition of Soils Under Protected Cultivation
by Jiahui Yu, Ke Xu, Zhengpeng Li, Xiaojun Wang, Qingbiao Yan, Kaibin Qi, Tianlong Chen and Mei Han
Plants 2026, 15(13), 1965; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants15131965 (registering DOI) - 25 Jun 2026
Abstract
To evaluate the ameliorative effects of different green manure crops on continuously cropped protected pepper soil and to identify suitable green manure species for plateau-protected cultivation systems, a one-factor randomized complete block design was conducted with five treatments: common vetch (L1), pea (L2), [...] Read more.
To evaluate the ameliorative effects of different green manure crops on continuously cropped protected pepper soil and to identify suitable green manure species for plateau-protected cultivation systems, a one-factor randomized complete block design was conducted with five treatments: common vetch (L1), pea (L2), hairy vetch (L3), radish (L4), and a control without green manure (CK). Soil physicochemical properties, enzyme activities, and microbial community composition were determined at the full-bloom stage before green manure incorporation. Compared with CK, L1 reduced soil pH from 8.63 to 8.34 and decreased total salt content by 45.5%, increased alkali-hydrolyzable nitrogen by 40.93%, and significantly enhanced catalase activity. L3 increased available phosphorus by 23.72% and urease and sucrase activities by 71.32% and 56.31%, respectively, while significantly affecting fungal β-diversity and community composition. Community composition analysis showed that L3 increased the relative abundances of the bacterial genus Rhizobium and the fungal genus Rhizophagus, while reducing the relative abundance of Ascomycota and several potentially pathogen-associated fungal taxa. Redundancy analysis and Mantel tests indicated that bacterial community composition was mainly associated with soil total salt content, alkaline phosphatase, and available phosphorus, whereas fungal community composition was more closely related to urease and alkaline phosphatase. Random forest analysis and partial least squares path modeling further suggested that sucrase, urease, and catalase were important factors closely associated with changes in the soil quality index (SQI). Overall, common vetch performed better in reducing soil salinity, increasing alkali-hydrolyzable nitrogen, and improving the soil quality index and may therefore be considered a suitable green manure species for improving continuously cropped protected pepper soil on the Qinghai Plateau. Hairy vetch showed advantages in increasing available phosphorus and regulating fungal community composition, indicating its potential suitability for protected soils with limited phosphorus availability. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Insights in Production and Utilization of Green Manure Crops)
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15 pages, 2159 KB  
Article
Interactions Between Root Traits and Fungal Functional Guilds Across the Root Economics Spectrum
by Xinyi Chen, Jie Zhang, Zhirong Liu, Jian Guo, Yaoyao Tong, Qiu Yang, Guilong Li and Jia Liu
Plants 2026, 15(7), 1031; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants15071031 - 27 Mar 2026
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Abstract
Soil fungi play a pivotal role in maintaining ecosystem functions and regulating plant health. Although plant root traits can significantly impact the abundance and diversity of different fungal groups, the mechanism by which plant root strategies drive the assembly of soil fungal guilds [...] Read more.
Soil fungi play a pivotal role in maintaining ecosystem functions and regulating plant health. Although plant root traits can significantly impact the abundance and diversity of different fungal groups, the mechanism by which plant root strategies drive the assembly of soil fungal guilds remains limited. Utilizing Root Economics Space theory, this study investigates how four green manures (hairy vetch, rye, radish, and rapeseed) with contrasting root functional strategies (along the ‘fast–slow’ and ‘outsourcing–DIY’ axes) regulate the composition and functional structure of soil fungal communities. Community characteristics of three functional guilds (plant pathogens, saprophytes, and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi), as well as relationships between these communities and plant root traits, were evaluated using a combination of Illumina high-throughput sequencing, functional annotation, and multivariate statistical analysis. Overall, different root strategies were associated with distinct fungal community patterns, potentially related to differences in root-derived resource inputs and soil properties. The ‘slow’ and ‘DIY’ strategies were associated with lower relative abundance of plant pathogenic fungi and higher relative abundance of saprotrophic fungi, whereas the ‘fast’ and ‘outsourcing’ strategies were associated with higher relative abundance of plant pathogens and AMF. These findings suggest that root functional strategies may help explain variation in fungal guild composition under different green manure species. From a practical perspective, the results provide a basis for selecting green manure species to help manage soil-borne disease risk, regulate beneficial soil microbial communities, and support more sustainable soil management in agricultural production. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Insights in Production and Utilization of Green Manure Crops)
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