Alleviation of poverty and achievement of zero-hunger target and food security are significant challenges faced by agricultural planners worldwide. Improving many agronomic approaches, which have drastic effects on crop growth and yield, is urgently needed to report this aim. Replacement of a part of chemical fertilizers by organic manure through a simple technique of using minimum effective dose of sufficient and balanced quantities of organic and inorganic fertilizers in combination with specific microorganisms, called INM, has a bright solution in this area. Recently, several investigators reported that integrated use of chemical fertilizers with organic manure is becoming a quite promising practice not only for maintaining higher productivity but also for greater stability to crop production. In addition, INM acts as a source of energy, organic carbon, and available nitrogen for the growth of soil microbes and improvement of physical properties of soil, and also have great residual effect on subsequent crops. So, the key component of the INM goal is to reach the eco-friendly practice through the harmonious properties of both sources by making a combination that can be used for decreasing the enormous use of chemical fertilizers and accreting a balance between fertilizer inputs and crop nutrient requirement, maintaining the soil fertility, optimizing the level of yield, maximizing the profitability, and subsequently reducing the environmental pollution. Lastly, INM is a tool that can offer good options and economic choices to supply plants with a sufficient amount of nutrients in need and can also reduce total costs, create favorable soil physiochemical conditions and healthy environment, eliminate the constraints, safeguard the soil nutrient balance, and find safety methods to get rid of agriculture wastes.

The primary goal of integrated nutrient management (INM) strategies is to substitute a portion of chemical fertilizers with a more sustainable and environmentally safe organic compost in order to mitigate soil degradation, improve crop production, and protect the environment. Therefore, the present study was conducted to assess the impacts of different INM practices, namely full-dose NPK (T1), compost of cow manure at 5 t ha⁻¹ (T2), compost of poultry manure at 5 t ha⁻¹ (T3), compost of mixed sheep and camel manure at 5 t ha⁻¹ (T4), 50% NPK combined with the mixture of the three types of composts at the rate of 5 t ha⁻¹ (T5) or 10 t ha⁻¹ (T6), and mixture of the three types of composts at the rate of 10 t ha⁻¹ (T7), 15 t ha⁻¹ (T8), or 20 t ha⁻¹ (T9) with or without biofertilizers for each treatment on several physiochemical and biological proprieties of soil and final grain yield of field crops after 2 years of field-scale experiments. The results showed that all INM practices generally significantly (p < 0.05) improved the initial values of all tested soil physiochemical and biological proprieties, whereas improvement was more prominent for the plots treated with T5–T9, compared with those treated with T1–T4. Seed inoculation with biofertilizers also significantly (p < 0.05) increased different soil proprieties by 2.8–12.0%, compared to that of the non-inoculation treatment. Principal component analysis revealed that most soil chemical properties were closely associated with T5–T6 treatments, while most soil physical and biological properties appeared to be more related to T7–T9 treatments. Our results indicated that recycling agricultural wastes into new productive composts and integrating it into appropriate INM practices as shown in T5–T9 treatments may induce favorable changes in soil properties and improve crop production under arid conditions even in the short term.

HIGH concentration of CaCO3, pH and EC, are among the main constraints affecting soil health, nutrients solubility, availability and lower productivity. Managing agronomic practices are the best way for insuring soil deterioration. Field experiments, in split plot design, were carried out in two summer seasons of 2017 and 2018 years at Nobaria, Behaira Governorate, Egypt, to investigate the effect of cropping systems and nutrients management on the nutrients uptake and utilize by maize (Zea mays L.). The experiment included three intercropping systems viz., sole maize ; cereal/cereal and cereal/legume and four fertilization treatments viz., recommended dose of NPK (control); half of recommended dose; half of recommended dose+organic manure (compost) 30m3 ha-1 and half of recommended dose+organic manure (compost) 30m3 ha-1+inoculation seeds with multi strains microbial bacteria. Results confirmed that maize/legumes intercropped resulted in superior nutrients uptake and robust improvements in yield advantages. Additionally, intercropped maize/legumes and application the half dose of the recommended chemical fertilizers alongside 30m3 ha-1 of organic manure and seed inoculation with bacteria could mitigate soil nutrients deficiency, increased N, P, K and remaining an increase of final grain yields by 14.47% and 26.41% in both seasons, respectively. While, maize/cereal intercropped increased the uptake of Fe, Mn and Zn. Results highlighted that intercropping systems alongside integrated nutrients management could compensate the reduced dose of synthetic fertilizers. Such practices are the most effective practices can prevent nutrients deficiency and help small householder farmers to achieve high yield.

This review compiled the global research from the past few years on one of the most important agronomic practices, which is crop rotation. Crop rotation can help maximize crop yield potential of unit area without any requirements to increase financial investments (Stanger et al. 2008 and Sexton, 2016). Crop rotation is an important strategy in managing equipment, labor availability, market variability and climate changes. Over time, crop rotations could occurred some benefits, for example can help increase soil organic matter levels, thereby enhancing soil quality, reduce soil erosion and runoff, and improve soil physical properties. Generally, while Crop rotations are a foundational element of sustainability and long-term profitability, in the same time adopting crop rotation is a complex practice, it is must be adaptable to local conditions and challenges. Also, considerable attention must be looked at natural systems as a model to mimic always needs to improve. Although a corn-soybean rotation may be the most common rotation in many areas, but it is not always the best option. A good rotation program should be productive, minimize nutrient loss, cover the soil, provide resilience against natural constrains, and each crop should offer some benefits to the following crop.

Formulating new integrated plant nutrient management (IPNM) strategies in order to sustain crop production and protect the environment has become an important issue in the present agricultural system. Therefore, a field study was carried out in the two seasons 2016 and 2017 to formulate the best IPNM strategies for improving the growth, yield, and quality of maize grown in an arid agro-ecosystem. The IPNM comprised full-dose NPK (T1); composted agricultural wastes based on cow manure (T2), poultry manure (T3), and a mixture of sheep and camel manure (T4) as activators at the rate of 5 t ha⁻¹ for each; half-dose NPK was combined with the mixture of the three types of composted agricultural wastes at the rate of 5 t ha⁻¹ (T5) or 10 t ha⁻¹ (T6), and a mixture of the three types of composted agricultural wastes at the rate of 10 t ha⁻¹ (T7), 15 t ha⁻¹ (T8), or 20 t ha⁻¹ (T9), either with or without biofertilizers. The results showed that, as compared to T1, T6 or T9 significantly increased different growth, yield, and quality parameters of maize by 11.4–27.3%, 0.8–31.8%, and 4.6–17.2%, while T2 significantly decreased these parameters by 2.2–17.8%, 3.5–16.7%, and 4.5–9.4%, respectively. Seed inoculation with biofertilizers significantly increased different parameters of maize by 1.8–12.9%, compared to that of the non-inoculation seed treatment. Principal component analysis showed a strong relationship between different parameters of maize and treatments T5, T6, T8, and T9 with seed inoculation. Further, a significant and linear relationship was observed between different parameters of maize and the amount of N (R² = 0.65–0.77), P (R² = 0.58–0.71), and K (R² = 0.63–0.73). These results indicated that any IPNM strategies that manage the NPK status and dynamics in the soil are a promising avenue for improving the growth and productivity of maize grown in the arid agro-ecosystem.

Fresh water is considered one of the most important factors in expanding the cultivated area. In arid and semi-arid zones, water resources are scarce. Recently many scientists in different countries have concluded that the re-use of wastewater could help to solve water scarcity problems. An additional target is to protect the environment by reducing the pollution load with little or no risk to the plants, groundwater or human health. Therefore, the principal objective of the present study was to demonstrate the economic aspects of re-using secondary treated wastewater in irrigation, in order to make the best use of existing resources. Thus, field trials were established in a rotation of summer and winter crops during the 2000–2002 seasons to evaluate the effect of irrigation with secondary treated wastewater on the yield and quality of field crops compared with canal water. The present study discusses a part of this study, concerning the effect on the yield and quality of lentils and pearl millet. The experimental treatments for both crops were the same in both growing seasons, involving two water irrigation sources (secondary treated wastewater and canal water) and two fertilization treatments (application of recommended rates of chemical fertilizers and control without fertilizer application). The data demonstrated that crops irrigated with secondary treated wastewater performed equally well or significantly better than those irrigated with canal water. Heavy metal concentrations were very low, and had no influence on crop quality, determined as the chemical composition of lentil seeds and the dry forage yield of millet. Animal performance was also taken into consideration. The results indicated that the seed and biological yields of plants given wastewater in the absence of chemical fertilizers were nearly equal to those of plants given the recommended dose of chemical fertilizers, indicating that wastewater could provide an adequate amount of N, P and K to cover crop requirements at different growth stages.