Optimized Irrigation and Water Management in Horticultural Production

Dear Colleagues,

Optimized irrigation and water management is an essential aspect of horticultural production. With rising consumer expectations for crop quality, the focus of water management for horticultural crops is shifting from solely maximizing yield to enhancing both water efficiency and quality. In the past decade, rapid advancements in technologies such as sensors, crop growth models, water-retaining materials, machine learning, and large language models have significantly advanced the techniques for diagnosing crop water deficits, predicting water needs, forecasting consumption, and making irrigation and drainage decisions. However, there are still many basic theoretical problems that need to be solved urgently, including the following: The mechanisms for high precision and the multi-source perception of water deficit information in horticultural crops are still unclear; the water consumption characteristics and water-saving mechanisms of perennial crops during growth and non-growth periods under various irrigation methods are not well understood; the impact mechanisms of conventional and unconventional water supplies on crop quality have yet to be elucidated; and research into intelligent irrigation decisions based on crop models and deep learning requires further strengthening.

This Special Issue aims to highlight the latest advancements in optimized irrigation and water management in horticultural production including, but not limited to, the following topics: (1) novel water diagnostic methods; (2) quantitative characterization of crop evapotranspiration; (3) water quality relationships; (4) innovative irrigation methods for horticultural crops; (5) application of unconventional water in horticulture; (6) development of intelligent irrigation decision systems; and (7) new methods for soil water retention.

Dr. Lijian Zheng
Prof. Dr. Juanjuan Ma
Guest Editors

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