Advances in Biostimulant Applications and Sustainable Crop Production

Dear Colleagues,

Today, one of the greatest challenges faced by the agriculture and food industries is developing sustainable and environmentally friendly systems to meet the nutritional demand of the continuously growing global population. One of the solutions that would enable increasing crop yields and protecting produce would be implementing novel agricultural technologies and the development of the existing ones. Additional challenges posed to sustainable agricultural production include reducing inputs and/or improvement in crop quality, especially under nonoptimal growth conditions. This would result in higher profits to farmers, which would also be translated into greater possibilities of storing plant materials after harvest and achieving higher yields of crops with quality and nutritional values that are acceptable by increasingly more aware consumers. Nonetheless, biostimulants can represent a tool to mitigate the environmental impact of agriculture. Considering the above, the agriculture industry has to cope with severe challenges and, undoubtedly, be supported by many scientific disciplines, allowing for its subsequent but modern and responsible development.

Biostimulants represent a group of products (other than fertilizers) that promote plant growth when used in small doses. Both microorganisms and products arising from natural origin (e.g., protein hydrolysates, algal extracts, humic acids) are being increasingly used as biostimulants. These ecosystem-friendly, natural formulations promote plant growth, nutrient uptake, and plant tolerance to abiotic stresses. The interest expressed by contemporary agriculture in this category of bioproducts is due to the intensive search for novel preparations that could effectively reduce the use of synthetic agrochemicals.

This Special Issue will welcome interdisciplinary research, including laboratory research; studies on new technologies and products for plant growth stimulation; case studies; and field experiments showing a critical approach to the possibility of developing sustainable agriculture solutions based on the application of biostimulants. This Special Issue aims to identify research and scientific approaches to the critical problem of sustainable agriculture.

Prof. Dr. Sławomir Kocira
Prof. Dr. Luigi Lucini
Prof. Dr. Agnieszka Szparaga
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. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 2400 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.

• sustainable crop production
• innovations and challenges for biostimulant application
• evolution of biostimulants
• low-input agriculture
• novel natural resources for biostimulants
• screening for new biostimulants
• agricultural functions of plant biostimulants
• mechanism of action of plant biostimulants
• economic and quality aspects of sustainable crop production based on biostimulant application
• biostimulants and precision agriculture
• biostimulants and quality of fruits and vegetables
• practical guides for biostimulant application in crop production