Plant Nutrition, Plant-Soil Relationships and Sustainable Agriculture

Dear Colleagues,

Sustainable agriculture is one of the greatest challenges for modern, low-input, low-cost agriculture, aiming also at achieving high nutritional qualitative products. Sustainable fertilizer sources, such as by-products of the food-industry, animal manures, and different kind of bio-fertilizers enriched with suitable microorganisms (arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi- AMF, PGPR bacteria, etc.) are recently used as soil amendments, in order to improve soil fertility and soil physical properties, to decrease chemical fertilizer inputs and to enhance sustainable nutrient management. Furthermore, the new generation of controlled N release fertilizers significantly contribute to the synchronization of N release with the real N nutritional needs of plants (in the suitable developmental stage), thus to the elimination of N losses to the environment.    

Apart from the different by-products that could be used as soil amendments to decrease fertilizer inputs, sustainable field management practices are also necessary to preserve and protect soil fertility, to eliminate nutrient losses via leaching, denitrification, and erosion, and to increase nutrient use efficiency and organic C content. Within the most important field practices to enhance sustainable nutrient management and boost sustainability of agroecosystems are included the co-cultivation of cover crops and N-fixing species with perennial crops, the minimum or no-till soil elaboration, the use of suitable composts for fertilization, pruning material recycling, the use of drip-irrigation, etc.  

This Special Issue focuses on the role of innovative fertilizers on sustainable nutrient management in agroecosystems, as well as on the role of sustainable field management practices on the decrease of nutrient losses and improvement of soil fertility. Special emphasis will be paid on the combinational effects, derived from the use of controlled N release fertilizers and/or other innovative soil amendments with sustainable field management practices, on soil fertility and plant nutrition. This Special Issue will include interdisciplinary studies embracing disciplines from soil fertility and microbiology, plant nutrition, and sustainable agriculture. All types of articles, such as original research and reviews, are welcome in this Special Issue.

Dr. Theocharis Chatzistathis
Guest Editor

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