REVIEW article
Front. Agron.
Sec. Field Water Management
This article is part of the Research TopicAgronomic and Environmental Approaches for Improving Field Water Management in the Scenario of Climate ChangeView all 3 articles
A systematic review on the combined effects of deficit irrigation (DI) and soil amendment with super-absorbent polymer (SAP) on crop yield and water productivity
Provisionally accepted
Vincent Ng'eno1Wilfredo Barrera Jr.2
Christian Omuto1Duncan O. Mbuge1John Paul Obiero1
Anna Dalla Marta2
Leonardo Verdi2*- 1University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya
- 2University of Florence, Florence, Italy
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Deficit irrigation (DI) and soil amendment with super-absorbent polymer (SAP) are viable strategies to reduce agricultural water demand. This review paper aims to discuss the status quo of research studies on this topic focusing on their effects on yield and water productivity (WP). Publications were retrieved from Scopus® database and relevant studies used for the analysis were selected following the PRISMA protocol. Findings indicate that SAP effectively increased yield and WP, particularly under field conditions and various levels of DI. Soil type with high water holding capacity (e.g. clay) showed higher WP when SAP was added in the soil while minimal effect was observed in soil types with lower water retention capacity (e.g. sandy, sandy clay, and sandy loam). The amount of SAP applied varied by crop type but not by irrigation strategy. In conclusion, crop yield and WP is affected by the amount of SAP and DI with some crop-and soil-specific responses. To maximise SAP effectiveness, it is recommended to apply it directly within the plant rooting depth, considering also the specific crop type. Furthermore, future research should adopt systematic irrigation scheduling and appropriate irrigation regimes to enhance SAP and DI efficiency.
Keywords: crop yield, deficit irrigation, soil amendment, Super AbsorbentPolymer, Water productivity
Received: 11 Jan 2026; Accepted: 16 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Ng'eno, Barrera Jr., Omuto, Mbuge, Obiero, Dalla Marta and Verdi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Leonardo Verdi
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.