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Magnetic Resonance in Agriculture

Guest Editor: Pierluigi Mazzei

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy represents a versatile, robust and advanced analytical technique enabling the acquisition of structural, multinuclear and conformational information on complex molecular systems. 

Since NMR representsNew Content Item a crucial resource to deal with challenging and complex issues concerning the wide field of agriculture, a number of valuable scientific contributions have been collected in the present thematic series to underscore the relevant potentialities of this technique. In particular, Soong et al. proposed an innovative water-mediated NOE-based technique, referred to as waterLOGSY, to evaluate clay-xenobiotic interactions. Zhang et al. described several case studies to prove the applicability of advanced solid-state NMR techniques (CPMAS NMR) to examine different types of natural organic matter, such as seaweed and pollen biomasses, atmospheric deposition material, sediments and kerogen. Mazzei and Piccolo reviewed the latest representative studies employing HRMAS NMR on systems tightly related to agricultural chemistry and including soil components, plant tissues, agro-food products and in-vivo organisms. Amargianitaki and Spyros produced a review on the capacity of liquid-state NMR-based metabolomics to assess the authenticity of wines and their differentiation according to grape genotype, vineyard properties, geographical origin and wine-making procedures. Cade-Menun provided an essential overview of the most important studies on the application of solution-state 31P NMR spectroscopy for the characterization and quantification of P forms in non-pasture cropland soils. Finally, Capitani et al. summarized a most interesting application of a portable NMR device enabling the non-destructive and non-invasive investigation on food quality and the identification of the effects resulting from processes such as food ripening, drying, dehydration and adulteration.

The information contained in the present featured articles collection emphasize the role that NMR spectroscopy may play in investigations related to agricultural and food sciences and indicate the promising and still underutilized NMR approaches to be applied to future research issues.

  1. Low-field 1H NMR relaxometry is an important tool used to investigate on the most abundant components of intact foodstuffs based on relaxation parameters and amplitude of the NMR signals. In particular, informati...

    Authors: Donatella Capitani, Anatoly P. Sobolev, Valeria Di Tullio, Luisa Mannina and Noemi Proietti
    Citation: Chemical and Biological Technologies in Agriculture 2017 4:17
    Content type: Review Published on:

  2. Understanding the forms and dynamics of soil phosphorus (P) is essential to maintain agricultural productivity while minimizing environmental risks. Since it was first used on soil extracts in 1980, 31P-nuclear m...

    Authors: Barbara J. Cade-Menun
    Citation: Chemical and Biological Technologies in Agriculture 2017 4:19
    Content type: Review Published on:

  3. A comprehensive summary of research work related to applications of NMR spectroscopy in combination with multivariate statistical analysis techniques for the analysis, quality control, and authentication of wi...

    Authors: Maria Amargianitaki and Apostolos Spyros
    Citation: Chemical and Biological Technologies in Agriculture 2017 4:9
    Content type: Review Published on:

  4. Natural organic matter (NOM) plays important roles in biological, chemical, and physical processes within the terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem. Despite its importance, a clear and exhaustive knowledge on NOM ...

    Authors: Dainan Zhang, Dandan Duan, Youda Huang, Yu Yang and Yong Ran
    Citation: Chemical and Biological Technologies in Agriculture 2017 4:8
    Content type: Research Published on:

  5. The relatively recent and advanced high-resolution magic angle spinning (HRMAS) NMR technique enables the direct application of NMR spectroscopy to semi-solid and gel-like samples. It combines the advantages o...

    Authors: Pierluigi Mazzei and Alessandro Piccolo
    Citation: Chemical and Biological Technologies in Agriculture 2017 4:11
    Content type: Review Published on:

  6. The sorption of anthropogenic compounds on clay minerals is a complex molecular process with important implications for the fate of agrochemicals and organic pollutants in the environment.

    Authors: Ronald Soong, Adolfo Botana, Jasmine Wang, Hashim Farooq, Denis Courtier-Murias and Andre Simpson
    Citation: Chemical and Biological Technologies in Agriculture 2017 4:3
    Content type: Research Published on: