Editorial policy

Focus and scope

The Revista Chapingo Serie Horticultura (RCHSH) publishes scientific and technological research results in the horticultural field and its related areas. Its objective is to generate an international space for dissemination and discussion of scientific and technological knowledge in the horticultural field, through the publication of unpublished research results. It is aimed at researchers and professionals dedicated to or associated with the horticultural area.

The RCHSH has both a printed version (ISSN 1027-152X) and an electronic one (ISSN 2007-4034), published by the Universidad Autónoma Chapingo. Since 1994, it has had an open-access dissemination policy. Therefore, the reproduction of its content is authorized, provided that the original source is correctly cited and accompanied by the hyperlink to the RCHSH version, along with its digital object identifier (DOI). It adheres to the good editorial practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

The RCHSH is a bilingual (Spanish and English) journal published triannually, at the beginning of the January-April, May-August and September-December periods. The average receipt-acceptance time for contributions over the last two years has been 8.5 months.

Subject areas

The topics that are published by the Revista Chapingo Serie Horticultura includes those considered by the Horticultural Science Abstracts of the Center for Agriculture and Biosciences International (CABI) (http://www.cabi.org/publishing-products/online-information-resources/horticultural-science-abstracts/). The crops included in the topics published by the journal can be grouped into the following categories:

 1. Vegetables: fruit, leaf, stem and root vegetables; legumes for pod consumption; edible fungi and algae; sprouts (alfalfa, beans, bamboo, among others).

 2. Fruits grown in tropical, subtropical, temperate and arid climates (vine, exotic fruits, cactus, etc.) are also included.

 3. Ornamental plants such as cut (flowers and leaves), pot production, ferns, orchids, lawns, palms, recreational trees, cactus succulent and aquatic plants, among others.

 4. Medicinal plants and spices; culinary herbaceous species and producers of essential oils.

 5. Stimulant and beverage plants (tea, coffee, cocoa).

 6. Small industrial crops used as sweeteners, sugar, waxes, resin and latex, pesticides and fish poisons, rubber producing plants (hevea and guayule), fiber-producing plants (for example agave and pineapple)

 7. Perennial oil crops (coconut, palm trees, jojoba) used for biofuels the production and other compounds (for example, jatropha)

 8. Wild plants with horticultural, fruit, ornamental, medicinal properties, etc.

The areas of basic and applied research contemplated by the journal are diverse, although related to horticulture, among which are mentioned:

Plant nutrition, agronomic management, crop protection, protected agriculture, growth models and analysis, genetic improvement, phytogenetic resources, Botany, Taxonomy, Physiology, Biochemistry, development and maturation, propagation, in vitro tissue culture, gene expression, genetic engineering, climate change, pollution and environmental stress, organic and sustainable agriculture, harvest and post-harvest technology, food safety, nutritional value, evaluation of cultivars, pests and diseases control, ethnobotanical uses of plants, market, economy, and rural sociology.

Section policies

Any contribution that is considered for editorial and peer review must be unpublished and the product of original research; in addition, submissions have to fall into one of the following formats accepted by the RCHSH:

Scientific articles

They are scientific and technological contributions, original, unpublished, developed with ethical practices, derived either from a rigorous experimental process or well-founded theoretical development. All information necessary for an experiment to be replicated by other researchers must be included. It includes: title, abstract, highlights, keywords, introduction, materials and methods, results and discussion (together or as separate chapters), conclusions and references; the maximum length is 7,500 words.

Critical review articles

It is the written product of an in-depth, comprehensive and up-to-date review of a topic of recent interest within the horticultural field. It must be based on a critical analysis, which covers the state of the art and allows us to glimpse current and future research needs and, where appropriate, technology transfer. It includes: a title, abstract, highlights, keywords, introduction, methods and criteria used for the search and selection of references, a critical literature review, discussion, conclusions and literature cited. Its maximum length is 7,500 words.

Scientific or technological notes

It is a short report of original research. It has the same objective same as the scientific article, although this type of contributions are expressed in a brief form, and does not mean that it is less critical. It includes: title, abstract, highlights, keywords, introduction, materials and methods, results and discussion, conclusions and references; the maximum length is 4,400 words.It is a short report of original research. It has the same objective as the scientific article, but this type of contribution is expressed in a brief way, although it has no less importance because of that. It includes: a title, abstract, highlights, keywords, introduction, materials and methods, results and discussion, conclusions and literature cited. Its maximum length is 4,000 words.

Descriptions of new cultivars

The specific characteristics of new cultivars, their adaptation areas, as well as the differences and advantages that distinguish them are described. It includes: title, abstract, highlights, keywords, introduction, description of the origin of the cultivar, selection method, distinctive features, and comparative advantages with respect to other available materials. The cultivar’s registration number must be included. Its maximum length is 4,000 words.

Methodologies

It is a technical report that explains in detail the development of a new methodology within the horticultural field, the modification of an existing one, or the preliminary results of its application. It includes: a title, abstract, highlights, keywords, introduction, critical literature review, discussion, conclusions and literature cited. Its maximum length is 4,000 words.

Submission

The submission process, review and opinion issued for each contribution will be carried out through the Editorial Manager® (EM) platform, through the RCHSH website (https://www.editorialmanager.com/rchsh/default.aspx). The author responsible for the contribution’s application process within EM is the one designated in the list of authors as the “corresponding author.”

Editorial review

The RCHSH only receives original and unpublished contributions (written in Spanish or English) that fall within the journal’s scope and format typologies set out in the Policies Section.

The documents required to start the reception process are:

Submission application

It includes the adscription and personal data of all authors, as well as their signature. In this, the authors expressly state that their contribution is the product of original research, which is unpublished, that is not being simultaneously submitted to another journal and that has not been previously published in another journal, platform or information system. A contribution will be considered as "previously published" when: 1) The work submitted to the journal is partially or wholly contained in the published proceedings of a scientific event. 2) The full text has been published in its entirety in any language, both in printed and electronic formats, and has an ISSN or ISBN. Within this letter, the authors must indicate if there was a conflict of interest and, in such a case, the agreements must be mentioned.

Identification sheet

It includes the title of the contribution, type of document submitted, author names, institutional affiliation, country and ORCID number of all authors.

It contains all the characteristics indicated in the "Author’s Guide," without including either author names or institutional affiliation.

All documents submitted to the RCHSH are reviewed with specialized software packages to determine the degree, if any, of content duplication. If this tool finds an appreciable similarity with other works previously published in the introduction, results and discussion, and conclusions sections, the submitted text will be rejected outright.

If the submitted document meets the requirements of the format review and passes the accreditation process performed through specialized software packages, a key is assigned and the peer review process is initiated, which is communicated via email, through the Editorial Manager® platform.

Peer review

The scientific review of the contributions is done under the double-blind modality through the Editorial Manager® platform. This system allows the detailed monitoring of this process and offers special formats for the assignment of Reviewers and Assistant Editors, as well as the formats required for the issuance of opinions and communication with the corresponding author.

Initially, the Editor-in-chief assigns two reviewers who must be experts in the subject matter of the contribution and unaffiliated with the institution of the authors. The results of this evaluation may be:

Accepted for publication.

Accepted with minor modifications: minor modifications are proposals for changes related to grammatical, technical and format deficiencies, which can be expressly identified as basic, public domain knowledge, especially within the horticultural field.

Significant modifications: significant changes are proposals for changes that focus on the methodological design, presentation of results, clarification of techniques or experiments, or include complementary data that give scientific validity to the results and conclusions of the contribution.

Rejected.

The reviewers must provide arguments for their opinion, and in the first three cases, the suggested changes and the reasons for making them should be indicated concisely. In the event that a reviewer does not comply with his/her assignment in the period indicated, or the opinion is not well-founded, the Editor-in-chief issues a new request for an opinion -according to his/her criteria- to the same reviewer or to another.

After receiving the opinions of the two reviewers, the Editor-in-chief forwards them to the corresponding author. In case the contribution has not been rejected, its correction is requested. If the authors do not agree with some of the points of view of the reviewers, they must fully support their decision to not attend to these observations.

After receiving the opinions of the two reviewers, the Editor-in-chief forwards them to the corresponding author. In case the contribution has not been rejected, its correction is requested. If the authors do not agree with some of the points of view of the reviewers, they must fully support their decision to not attend to these observations.

Reviewing the second version of the contribution, so he/she has to apply the same evaluation criteria as the reviewers.

Reviewing and resolving possible contradictory aspects between the opinions of the two reviewers and the substantiated assessments of the authors.

Issue an opinion on the second version, which is then reviewed by the Editor-in-chief who must check whether an adequate evaluation was carried out in accordance with the current Editorial Policy. In the event that the Editor-in-chief finds the review by the Assistant Editor inadequate, the former carries out an evaluation that replaces the evaluation of the latter.

According to the results of the evaluation of the reviewer and the Assistant Editor, the opinion and the process is as follows:

Accepted for publication. The contribution is forwarded to Coordinación de Revistas Institucionales (CORI) to start the publication process (style correction, translation, design, layout and metadata marking). The Editor-in-chief issues the "Letter of Acceptance" to the corresponding author, who has a period of five working days to communicate approval of modifications and is responsible for sending the letters of transfer of economic rights of all authors who sign a document whose format can be downloaded on the RCHSH webpage (https://revistas.chapingo.mx/horticultura/). The Editor-in-chief has the duty to indicate the number and date on which the contribution will be published

Minor modifications. The corresponding author receives the opinion and the suggested changes. Within five working days he/she must return the manuscript with the suggested modifications that the authors accept. If the corresponding author does not send the modifications in te indicated period, the contribution begins the opinion process again.

Significant modifications. The corresponding author receives the opinion and suggestion for changes. Within ten working days, he/she must return the manuscript with the suggested changes that the authors accept. If the corresponding author does not send the corrected contribution in the indicated period, the contribution may be rejected.

In the case of texts with minor and significant modifications, after receipt of the updated version of the document, the Assistant Editor reviews the changes made and the reasons given -in theoretical, methodological and empirical terms- not to make the suggested modifications.

If the opinion is Accepted for publication, the contribution is forwarded to CORI to start the publication process (style correction, translation, design, layout and metadata marking). The Editor-in-chief issues the "Letter of Acceptance" to the corresponding author, who has a period of five working days to communicate approval of modifications and is responsible for sending the letters of transfer of economic rights of all authors who sign a document whose format can be downloaded on the RCHSH webpage (https://revistas.chapingo.mx/horticultura/). The General Editor has the duty to indicate the issue and date on which the contribution will be published.

The second opinion possibility in this second version is Rejected.

Publication fee

Contributions accepted for publication are subject to a $200 USD recovery fee to cover part of the expenses of the publication process (administrative management, style correction, translation, design and metadata marking). Deposits are made in Banco Santander S. A., account no. 65501084813 in the name of Universidad Autónoma Chapingo (for national deposits CLABE: 014180655010848131 and SWIFT: 021000021, Beneficiary Bank: BMSXMXMM, for international deposits).

In certain cases, upon request and justification, the Institutional Editorial Committee may waive the recovery fee for some contributions, especially from authors attached to institutions in developing countries.

The manuscript submission has no charges.

Open Access Policy

The RCHSH, committees, together with the Universidad Autónoma de Chapingo, recognize that to improve the processes of diffusion and dissemination of scientific knowledge, it must be available to any user without any legal or economic barrier. Therefore, authors who publish in RCHSH accept the following conditions:

Based on copyright legislation, RCHSH recognizes and respects the moral rights of the authors, as well as the ownership of the patrimonial rights of their work that will be ceded to the Universidad Autónoma de Chapingo for its dissemination in open access.

In this way, any author who publishes in RCHSH must have signed a letter of cessation of rights, in which he/she explicitly recognizes that his/her work will be disseminated under the principles of open access and that, in addition, he/she can perform other independent and additional contractual agreements for the non-exclusive distribution of the final version of the article published in RCHSH (such as including it in an institutional or thematic repository, placing it in an academic social network, disseminating it in some other electronic or printed platform), on condition that it is clearly and explicitly pointed out that the document was first published in RCHSH and that the respective digital object identifier (DOI) is listed.

All content published in the Revista Chapingo Serie Horticultura is under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, so that readers/users can freely access all content published in RCHSH, as well as quote, share (in printed and electronic format), print and distribute the documents published in the journal, with the requirement that it be clearly and explicitly mentioned that the document was first published in RCHSH.

Revista Chapingo Serie Horticultura is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License

Frequency of Publication

RCHSH publishes three issues per year: January-April, May-August and September-December, in printed and electronic versions. Publishing is the responsibility of the Coordinación de Revistas Institucionales (CORI) of the Universidad Autónoma Chapingo, Mexico.

Code of Ethics

RCHSH subscribes to the code of ethics of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for the evaluation of the dynamics related to the publication process and the actions of the actors involved in it (editors, editorial committee, authors and reviewers). For more information, consult: publicationethics.org