Dear Colleagues,

There is a growing demand to increase the production of high-quality, nutritious fruits while maintaining rigorous environmental standards. To minimize chemicals’ adverse effects, the scientific community seeks tools to optimize mineral fertilization in fruit trees.

Numerous field and crop characteristics determine fertilization effectiveness. Soil and water properties define minerals’ distribution in the rhizosphere and their availability to crops. Environmental conditions determine root development and uptake potential. Finally, specific mineral requirements and phenological shifts affect the time and intensity of crops’ mineral acquisition.

Mineral fertilization also impacts the environment. Deficient fertilization renders farms underproductive and lowers the efficiency of land, work, or water applications. Excessive mineral applications would carry the apparent risks of hazardous runoffs, farming inefficiency, and profit losses. Moreover, high mineral availability adversely affects plants’ growth and productivity, amplifying the fertilization risks.

Economically, mineral fertilization of crops is an integration of the chemical and the farming industries, with their various considerations. There are novel fertilization solutions that lower allocation costs, simplify applications, or improve crops’ productivity. Such innovations could introduce infrastructure considerations that will shape future plantations. New fertilization management would also necessitate updated diagnostic tools and guidelines to fulfill their potential.

Hence, we will designate a Special Issue of Plants (ISSN 2223-7747; CODEN: PLANCD) to explore and discuss tree-crop fertilization while presenting mineral applications’ benefits, risks, and tradeoffs. The issue will form a multidisciplinary publication combining soil chemistry, physical sensors, computational modeling, plant physiology, multispectral imagery, the market economy, and ecology. Please submit your innovative findings and perspectives.

Dr. Ran Erel
Dr. Or Sperling
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.

• tree crops
• fertilization
• fertigation
• precision
• chemistry
• soil
• diagnostics
• nutrients
• sensory