Journal of Experimental Agriculture International

Sustainable agronomy increasingly requires more than replacing one input or practice with another. The central challenge is to maintain reliable crop production while reducing nutrient losses, greenhouse-gas emissions, soil degradation, water demand, pesticide dependence and biodiversity loss under increasingly variable climatic conditions. This critical narrative review evaluates recent developments in agronomic management with emphasis on evidence published from 2015 to 7 August 2026, while retaining selected earlier foundational studies. The literature was examined across soil-conserving management, crop diversification, nutrient stewardship, organic amendments and biological inputs, water-smart irrigation, precision and digital agronomy, and integrated pest and weed management. The evidence indicates that the most consistent gains arise when practices are treated as context-dependent components of redesigned cropping systems rather than universal stand-alone technologies. Crop diversification has comparatively broad support for improving multiple ecosystem services without systematic yield penalties, although effect sizes vary with diversification type, climate and baseline management. Reduced tillage, residue retention and cover crops can improve soil protection and surface soil carbon, but yield and whole-profile carbon responses depend strongly on residue supply, rotation, soil texture, climate and implementation duration. Improved nitrogen management can raise nitrogen-use efficiency and reduce some loss pathways, yet interventions may transfer pollution among pathways unless ammonia, nitrate and nitrous oxide are assessed together. Organic amendments, biochar, microbial inoculants and biostimulants can improve selected outcomes, but responses remain especially sensitive to material properties and soil constraints. Alternate wetting and drying in rice and precision input management demonstrate resource-saving potential, although greenhouse-gas trade-offs, capital requirements and uneven evidence across farming systems limit simple generalisation. Across domains, long-term diversification, better targeting of limiting resources and combinations of complementary practices appear more defensible than single-practice sustainability claims. Future research should prioritise multi-year, multi-location factorial trials, full greenhouse-gas and nutrient budgets, deeper soil-carbon measurement, farm-economic outcomes, adoption constraints and decision rules that identify where particular practice bundles are most likely to deliver durable co-benefits.