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Water Use Efficiency for Resilient Economies: Innovative Experimental Approaches Based on the Soil Conditioners

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A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Water Use and Irrigation".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 December 2022) | Viewed by 13512

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Mirko Castellini

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Guest Editor

Council for Agricultural Research and Economics - Research Center for Agriculture and Environment (CREA-AA), 70125 Bari, Italy
Interests: soil hydraulic conductivity; soil water retention; soil physical quality; soil management; soil conditioners
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Rita Leogrande

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Guest Editor

Council for Agricultural Research and Economics - Research Center for Agriculture and Environment (CREA-AA), 70125 Bari, Italy
Interests: soil organic matter; soil chemical properties; organic amendments; irrigation; compost
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Climate change is anticipated to cause climatic variability, and rainfall will be increasingly uncertain and variable. Consequently, the main topic of water use efficiency (WUE) optimization will be growingly central in many environmental sectors, including open field agriculture, protected agriculture, and urban green areas. In this context, the efforts of the scientific community should be aimed at increasing the resilience of the most sensitive agro-environments and green areas.

Overall, the recent increase in the use of alternative water resources such as saline water, sewage effluents, and treated wastewater offers several advantages, such as the availability of a large amount of water for irrigation, the opportunity to reserve better-quality water for human consumption, and a way to protect the environment from direct wastewater disposal to water bodies. Regardless of the nature of the water supply (natural precipitation, irrigation, or alternative water resources), however, a key factor that deserves to be further investigated is soil water retention optimization using soil conditioners.

Soil conditioners, both traditional (i.e., manure, compost, vermicompost) and innovative (i.e., biochar, hydrogel), are generally applied to save agricultural water, especially in arid and semi-arid environments, where specific agronomic practices for dry farms (i.e., irrigation deficit, partial root-zone drying) represent the only economically sustainable options. However, soil conditioners are often applied using approximate rates, because although mineral contributions are considered, the impact on the physical and hydraulic properties of the soil, namely the optimal balance air/water into the soil, is often overlooked. In addition, some of them are still not very widespread (i.e., hydrogel) or, alternatively, they are widely used (i.e., biochar) to reduce water evaporation from the soil, but their effects on greenhouse gas emissions need to be further investigated, because not all is known on this issue.

On the other hand, the use and/or reuse of alternative water resources, organic wastes, and organic soil conditioners in agriculture could produce unwanted effects including, for example, significant changes to chemical and biochemical properties and pollution of water tables. Therefore, studying such effects should be thorough to evaluate pros and cons and establish their effective environmental impact.

The main objective of this Special Issue is to gather high-quality papers related to innovative water management strategies and the rational use of soil conditioners, aiming to maximize WUE and yields, improve soil properties, and mitigate global warming. Specific applications in urban areas, i.e., parks, tree-lined avenues, urban gardens, and green roofs, will be welcome.

This Special Issue welcomes original research articles, reviews, mini-reviews, perspective articles, and meta-analysis studies.

Dr. Mirko Castellini
Dr. Rita Leogrande
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. Agronomy is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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 2600 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

compost
amendment
water use efficiency
waste reuse
smart sensors
biochar
hydrogel
soil mulching
soil water retention
irrigation
alternative water resources
sustainable dry farming
soil quality

Related Special Issue

Water Use Efficiency for Resilient Economies: Innovative Experimental Approaches Based on the Soil Conditioners—Series II in Agronomy

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 1414 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Soil Biochar Application: Assessment of the Effects on Soil Water Properties, Plant Physiological Status, and Yield of Super-Intensive Olive Groves under Controlled Irrigation Conditions

by José María De la Rosa, Paloma Campos and Antonio Diaz-Espejo

Agronomy 2022, 12(10), 2321; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/agronomy12102321 - 27 Sep 2022

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1712

Abstract

The effects of olive waste biochar and green compost as soil amendments on soil physical properties, as well as on physiological parameters and yield of a super-intensive olive crop cultivated under deficit irrigation conditions, were investigated in south-west Spain during the 2021 growing season. Thus, soils were amended with 40 t ha⁻¹ of olive pomace waste biochar, green-compost, or a biochar-compost mixture (50% w/w), and no amended plots were used as control. On a bi-monthly basis, soil pH, water holding capacity, humidity, and resistance to penetrability were determined. In addition, various indicators of the physiological status and water stress of the plant were also monitored. Finally, the olive yield per tree was measured. Results showed that biochar application was the most effective amendment for increasing soil moisture and reducing soil compaction. The latter was evidenced by the significant reduction of the resistance to the penetrability of the amended soils. Plants of the amended plots showed better leaf water potential. In addition, values of the net photosynthesis rate, the average intrinsic water-use efficiency, and the maximum rate of electron transport in the time before the harvest improved significantly in the trees from the biochar-amended plots, for which olive fruit yields increased by about 15% in comparison with the other treatments. Nevertheless, the estimated net oil yield per tree was similar because the olives from the biochar-amended trees contained more moisture. This field trial shows for the first time that by providing the soil with biochar from olive crop waste as an organic amendment, having high water retention capacity, porosity, and stability, it would be possible to reduce the irrigation water needed and maintain plant yields. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water Use Efficiency for Resilient Economies: Innovative Experimental Approaches Based on the Soil Conditioners)

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16 pages, 3999 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperEditor’s ChoiceArticle

Increasing Agricultural Resilience through Combined Supply and Demand Management (Case Study: Karaj Reservoir Dam, Iran)

by Icen Yoosefdoost, Milad Basirifard, José Álvarez-García and María de la Cruz del Río-Rama

Agronomy 2022, 12(9), 1997; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/agronomy12091997 - 24 Aug 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 7208

Abstract

Among the solutions to climate change’s harmful effects, AS (Adaptation Strategies) are more feasible. In this study, four AS, Changing Cultivation Dates (CCD), Deficit Irrigation (DI), Improving Irrigation Performance (IIP), and Optimizing the Crop Pattern (OCP), were investigated. The results showed that the WUE (Water Use Efficiency) was declined when the cultivation date was changed for all crops in the baseline and increased after the cultivation date was brought forward to 7, 14, 14, 28, 28 days for tomato, wheat, corn, barley and cucumber, respectively, in the future period. Deficit irrigation of 30% increased the WUE in all crops. A 48% increase in irrigation performance reduced demand by 10%. Following the OCP and diminishing the cultivation area by 30% increased farmers’ total profit and reduced the water consumption volume by 9% and 11%, respectively, in the baseline and future periods. To study the effect of these AS on crop yield and allocated volume, a combination of crop model programming and the MOEPO (Multi-Objective Emperor Penguin Optimizer) was employed to minimize Vulnerability and maximize Reliability Indexes (Performance Indexes). In the supply section, three scenarios were examined. The results showed that DI, IIP, CCD and OCP were classified from the most to the least option based on improving the Performance Indexes. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water Use Efficiency for Resilient Economies: Innovative Experimental Approaches Based on the Soil Conditioners)

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16 pages, 1591 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Short- and Medium-Term Effects of On-Farm Compost Addition on the Physical and Hydraulic Properties of a Clay Soil

by Mirko Castellini, Mariangela Diacono, Antonio Preite and Francesco Montemurro

Agronomy 2022, 12(6), 1446; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/agronomy12061446 - 16 Jun 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1643

Abstract

Compost amendment is a widespread agronomic practice, but little information is available about the short- and medium-term effects on clay soils. In this investigation, we selected three soil compost rates (treatments, T), i.e., fertilizer (T2 = 1.5 kg m⁻²), amending (T3 = 15 kg m⁻²), and organic (T4 = 75 kg m⁻²), that were compared to a control (T1). Our research accounts for the effects reached on representative large boxes (about 0.75 m³), without crops and for about eighteen months. An overall assessment of the physical and hydraulic properties of the soil was made, including infiltration rate or saturated hydraulic conductivity (K_s), water content and water retention (θ) of the soil, bulk density and structure, and several physical quality indicators obtained from the water retention curve, accounting for the optimal balance between water/air into the soil, pore volume distribution function, and soil features in the inflection point of the soil water retention curve. Additionally, the temporal changes of K_s were evaluated. The main results showed that (i) after eighteen months, and regardless of T, θ significantly improved by a factor of 1.2–1.3, but these improvements (up to 1%) were detected only close to water saturation (i.e., until 6 cm of soil pressure head) when little (T2) or no compost (T1) addition was considered, while a larger range was detected (until 60 cm) when higher rates (T3–T4) were used; (ii) K_s determination allowed to establish that compost effects vanished after about eleven months, but it was not possible to verify that composting increased the permeability of the investigated clay soil within that time frame; (iii) some significant correlations between K_s and some soil physical indicators estimated from both the inflection point of the water retention curve or bulk density suggested possible improvements in soil permeability. Because some factors (water content of the soil above all) could have affected the comparison of K_s measurements, further research on this topic is needed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water Use Efficiency for Resilient Economies: Innovative Experimental Approaches Based on the Soil Conditioners)

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13 pages, 1080 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Reclaimed Water Use in Agriculture: Effects on Soil Chemical and Biological Properties in a Long-Term Irrigated Citrus Farm

by Rita Leogrande, Francisco Pedrero, Emilio Nicolas, Carolina Vitti, Giovanni Lacolla and Anna Maria Stellacci

Agronomy 2022, 12(6), 1317; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/agronomy12061317 - 30 May 2022

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1932

Abstract

In Mediterranean regions, the scarcity of freshwater for agricultural purposes is leading to the use of alternative water sources. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of long-term irrigation with reclaimed water on chemical and biological soil properties. On a mandarin tree orchard (Citrus clementina, cv. Orogrande), freshwater (FW) and tertiary reclaimed water (RW) were supplied for irrigation. In spring 2017, a soil sampling was carried out, collecting from each experimental plot four samples at 0–0.20 m depth. Chemical and biochemical soil properties were determined on air dried and sieved soil and on fresh and field-moist soil, respectively. The irrigation with reclaimed water significantly increased the soil water extractable organic carbon (WEOC), available P, Mg, and Na content, and the electrical conductivity (EC). Although not significant, the respiration rates and enzymatic activities were higher in RW treatment. The results of this research highlighted that the irrigation with reclaimed water, providing organic carbon and other nutrients, could have, in the long-term, beneficial effects on soil microorganism and their activities. In any case, especially in arid and semi-arid environments, a proper management of wastewater should be recommended to avoid soil degradation due to salt accumulation in the rootzone. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water Use Efficiency for Resilient Economies: Innovative Experimental Approaches Based on the Soil Conditioners)

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