Aims & Scope

Aims

Physiology and Management of Sustainable Crops (PMSC) is a gold open-access, peer-reviewed journal that aims to be a premier journal for disseminating research in the field of crop physiology and management in a context of sustainable agriculture and climate change, welcoming diverse types of contributions conducted with scientific rigor and that represent a step forward in knowledge. Contributions may include, but are not limited to:

  • Cutting-edge research and innovative findings.
  • Studies encompassing fundamental or applied research.
  • Studies made both under controlled conditions (growth chambers, greenhouses) and under field conditions at tissue, organ, plant, shrub, tree or canopy level.
  • Studies made on extensive crops (rice, maize, barley, wheat, soybean, sorghum, etc.), woody fruit shrubs/trees, any cultivated plant used for human or animal nutrition, medicinal plants and aromatic herbs widely used in pharmaceutical compounds, gastronomy and perfumery.
  • Studies including any technical approach that helps to understand any crop physiological or management response. Omics (ionomic, metabolomic, proteomic, genomic, etc.), phenotyping technologies (sensors, drones, remote sensing) and models (including crop simulation models) can be incorporated to these studies as tools to investigate the basis of such changes as long as they help to understand physiological responses, and yield or quality changes.
  • Experimental, methodological (tools), theoretical, and confirmatory studies, including datasets, negative results and descriptive works, are welcome, provided they have a sound hypothesis and well-grounded implications. Merely descriptive studies will be excluded.

With these aims, PMSC links tools for pioneer research, theoretical aspects, and practical considerations, fostering a multidisciplinary dialogue among crop physiologists and academics and researchers from other disciplines. It is published quarterly online by Scilight Press.

Scope

The scope of PMSC encompasses the broad and intricate relationship between crops and environment across all levels of organization. The journal welcomes any methodology aimed to explore crop yield and quality responses to environmental changes and to human management. Studies that integrate multiple techniques are highly appreciated as long as they help to understand the underlying basis of constitutive processes and physiological responses to the environment, and yield or quality changes. Traditional crop physiological methods (e.g., stem/root traits characterizing growth, yield, yield components and quality traits, water relations, gas exchange, chlorophyll fluorescence, isotopic analyses, microscopy, etc.), omics (ionomic, metabolomic, proteomic, genomic, metagenomic, transcriptomic, etc.), phenotyping technologies (sensors, drones, remote sensing) and models (including crop simulation models) can be incorporated to these studies as tools to investigate the basis of such changes to management or environment.

PMSC welcomes a wide array of topics, including but not limited to:

Crop Physiology: Studies on crop physiology. Crop physiology is the study of how crops function and respond to the environment. It involves understanding the factors that affect crop growth and development, including external factors (light, temperature, water, nutrients, etc.) and internal ones such as the physiological mechanisms plants use to adapt to the surrounding environment. The latter can be divided in two: (i) primary processes such as photosynthesis, respiration, and transpiration and (ii) plant specialized metabolism (formerly known as secondary metabolism) which helps plants to face abiotic and biotic stress factors or a combination of them.

Crop Improvement: Studies on crop improvement with regard to crop yield and quality. The increased food demand along with a pressure to decrease the negative environmental impact of crop production is dictating the need to establish consistent and sustainable crop production systems, optimizing the input of nutrients and the management practices, employing regenerative and sustainable agricultural practices. This may include, among many other aspects, optimizing irrigation, fertilization, pest control practices and the use of soil and/or rhizosphere microbial biostimulants (including bacteria, mycorrhiza, Rhizobium and other symbioses), as well as breeding new varieties of crops that are more resistant/resilient to the climate and the growing conditions of a given environment.

Crops and Climate Change: Studies dealing with the response of crops to climate change. Crop production systems must align with the current adverse climate changes as it is one of the main challenges agriculture will face in the upcoming decades since its emergence ten thousand years ago. The main factors or agents associated with climate change are increased CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, increased temperatures, both day-time and night-time, and reduced water availability. These stress factors have important implications not only on crop physiology but also on the different management strategies growers should adapt to cope with losses in yields.

Multiple Crops and Growing Conditions: Studies including a large variety of crops and growing conditions and facilities. Studies made both under controlled conditions (growth chambers, greenhouses) and under field conditions at tissue, organ, plant, shrub, tree or canopy level are considered. Extensive crops (rice, maize, barley, wheat, soybean, sorghum, etc.), woody fruit shrubs/trees, any cultivated plant used for human or animal nutrition, medicinal plants and aromatic herbs widely used in pharmaceutical compounds, gastronomy and perfumery will be the focus of the journal.