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Horticulturae
Special Issues
Optimized Irrigation and Water Management in Horticultural Production
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Optimized Irrigation and Water Management in Horticultural Production

A special issue of Horticulturae (ISSN 2311-7524). This special issue belongs to the section "Plant Nutrition".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 25 April 2025 | Viewed by 896

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Lijian Zheng

E-Mail
Guest Editor
College of Water Resource Science and Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, China
Interests: water-saving irrigation; plant and soil; water diagnosis; stable isotope
Prof. Dr. Juanjuan Ma

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Guest Editor
College of Water Resource Science and Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, China
Interests: water-saving irrigation; water and fertilizer utilization; evapotranspiration; intelligent decision; water, carbon, and nitrogen use efficiency

Special Issue Information

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

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. Horticulturae 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 2200 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

  • irrigation
  • quality
  • evapotranspiration
  • soil water
  • water use efficiency
  • water diagnosis
  • intelligent decision

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

20 pages, 2034 KiB  
Article
The Effect of Mulching on the Root Growth of Greenhouse Tomatoes Under Different Drip Irrigation Volumes and Its Distribution Model
by Jiankun Ge, Yuhao Zhu, Xuewen Gong, Chuqi Yao, Xinyu Wu, Jiale Zhang and Yanbin Li
Horticulturae 2025, 11(1), 99; https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae11010099 - 16 Jan 2025
Viewed by 618
Abstract
Despite the continuous development of greenhouse cultivation technology, the influence mechanism of covering conditions on the root distribution of greenhouse crops remains unclear, which is emerging as a significant research topic at present. The interaction between mulching and irrigation plays a key role [...] Read more.
Despite the continuous development of greenhouse cultivation technology, the influence mechanism of covering conditions on the root distribution of greenhouse crops remains unclear, which is emerging as a significant research topic at present. The interaction between mulching and irrigation plays a key role in the root growth of greenhouse tomatoes, but its specific impact awaits in-depth exploration. To explore the response patterns of greenhouse crop root distribution to the drip irrigation water amount under mulching conditions, the tomato was chosen as the research object. Three experimental treatments were set up: mulched high water (Y0.9), non-mulched high water (N0.9), and mulched low water (Y0.5) (where 0.9 and 0.5 represent the cumulative evaporation from a 20 cm standard evaporation pan). We analyzed the water and thermal zone of tomato roots as well as the root distribution. Based on this, a root distribution model was constructed by introducing a mulching factor (fm) and a water stress factor (Ks). After carrying out two years of experimental research, the following results were drawn: (1) The average soil water content in the 0–60 cm soil layer was Y0.9 > N0.9 > Y0.5, and the average soil temperature in the 0–30 cm soil layer was Y0.5 > Y0.9 > N0.9. (2) The interaction between mulching and irrigation had a significant impact on the distribution of tomato roots. In the absence of mulch, the root surface area, average root diameter, root volume, and root length density initially increased and then decreased with depth, with the maximum root distribution concentrated around the 20 cm soil layer. Under mulched conditions, roots were predominantly located in the top layer (0–20 cm). Under the film mulching condition, the distribution range of root length density of low water (Y0.5) was wider than that of high water (Y0.9). (3) Root length density exhibited a significant cubic polynomial relationship with both the soil water content and soil temperature. In the N0.9 treatment, root length density had a bivariate cubic polynomial relationship with soil water and temperature, with a coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.97 and a normalized root mean square error (NRMSE) of 20%. (4) When introducing the film mulching factor (fm) and water stress factor (Ks) into the root distribution model to simulate the root length density distribution of Y0.9 and Y0.5, it was found that the NRMSE was 22% and R2 was 0.90 under the Y0.9 treatment, and the NRMSE was 24% and R2 was 0.98 under the Y0.5 treatment. This study provides theoretical support for the formulation of scientifically sound irrigation and mulching management plans for greenhouse tomatoes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Optimized Irrigation and Water Management in Horticultural Production)
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