Plant Water Use Efficiency for a Sustainable Agricultural Development

Abstract

The rising shortage of water resources worldwide in crop-producing regions and the need for irrigation optimisation call for sustainable water savings. That is, the allocation of irrigation water will be an ever-increasing source of pressure because of vast agricultural demands under changing climatic conditions. Consequently, irrigation has to be closely linked with water-use efficiency with the aim of boosting productivity and improving food quality, singularly in those regions where problems of water shortages or collection and delivery are widespread. The present Special Issue (SI) contains 19 original contributions addressing water-use efficiency under challenging topic of sustainable irrigation management to meet water scarcity conditions. These papers cover a wide range of subjects, including (i) interaction mineral nutrition and irrigation in horticultural crops, (ii) sustainable irrigation in woody fruit crops, (iii) medicinal plants, (iv) industrial crops, and (v) others devoted to remote sensing techniques and crop water requirements, genotypes for drought tolerance, and agricultural management platform. The studies have been carried out in both field and laboratory surveys, as well as modelling studies, and a wide range of geographic regions are also covered. The collection of these manuscripts presented in this SI updates and provides a relevant knowledge contribution for efficient saving water resources.

Keywords

• deficit irrigation
• crop-water requirements
• smart farming
• crop-production functions
• food quality
• remote sensing