Editorial policy

Aims and scope

The objective of the Revista Chapingo Serie Horticultura (RCHSH; Chapingo Horticulture Series Journal) is to generate an international space for the dissemination and discussion of research results related to the horticultural field through the publication of unpublished scientific and technological articles.

Proposals submitted for evaluation must not have been previously published, nor be in a similar process in another journal. Neither will preliminary, incomplete, or inconsequential research papers be accepted.

The RCHSH has been published by the Universidad Autónoma Chapingo since 1994, under an open-access dissemination policy (available on line). It is currently published on a bilingual (English and Spanish) and continuous (one annual volume) basis, with e-ISSN: 2007-4034. Contributions are received only through the Editorial Manager®. They are examined by a scientific committee and evaluated anonymously (double-blind modality) by peer experts. The average receipt-acceptance time for contributions in the last year was 5.5 months.

Accepted articles will be published as "In process" once the editing and style correction process has been approved. This document will then be replaced by the final version.

Topics

The crops included in the topics published by the RCHSH can be grouped into the following categories:

• Vegetables: leafy, stem, and root vegetables; legumes for pod consumption; edible mushrooms and algae; sprouts and shoots (alfalfa, beans, and bamboo, among others).
• Fruits and nuts grown in tropical, subtropical, temperate, and arid climates (vines, exotic fruits, and cacti, among others).
• Ornamental cut plants (flowers and leaves), potted production, ferns, orchids, grasses, palms, succulents, and aquatic plants, among others.
• Medicinal plants and spices; culinary herbaceous species and essential oil- producing plants.
• Stimulant plants for making beverages (tea, coffee, and cocoa, among others).
• Small crops used as sweeteners, sugar, waxes, resins, latex, pesticides, and fish poisons, rubber-producing plants (hevea and guayule), fiber-producing plants (e.g., agave and pineapple).
• Perennial oil crops (coconut, palm trees, and jojoba, among others) used for biofuels, production and other compounds.
• Wild plants with horticultural, fruit, ornamental, and medicinal potential, among others.
• Other crops, as long as they have a horticultural orientation.

The basic and applied research areas covered by the journal are diverse, but all related to horticulture; among them: plant nutrition, agronomic management, crop protection, protected agriculture, growth models and analysis, breeding, plant genetic resources, botany, taxonomy, physiology, biochemistry of growth, development and maturation, propagation, in vitro culture, gene expression, genetic engineering, climate change, pollution and environmental stress, organic and sustainable agriculture, harvest and post-harvest technology, food safety, nutritional value, cultivar evaluation, crop protection against pests, diseases and adverse abiotic factors, ethnobotanical uses of plants, landscape architecture, market, economics, and rural sociology, among others.

Section policies

All contributions considered for peer review must be unpublished (written in Spanish or English) and the product of original research. They must also be in line with the topics and research areas considered by the RCHSH. The types of contributions received are:

• Scientific articles
• Scientific or technological notes
• Review articles
• Description of new cultivars

For more details on the characteristics of each type of contribution, please see the Guide for authors.

Submission

The process of submission and review of contributions is done through the Editorial Manager®. The person responsible for the submission is the "corresponding author", and is the only one with whom communication will be maintained throughout the process. The documents and information required for the submission are:

• Cover letter
• Front page
• Manuscript
• Figures
• ORCID identifier of each author
• Full name, e-mail, and place of assignment of at least three potential reviewers with extensive experience in the subject of the contribution.

For more information regarding documents, see the Guide for authors.

If the paper is in line with the journal's topics and research areas, and meets the requirements described in the Guide for authors, an email will be sent to acknowledge receipt of the contribution, in which a reference key will be assigned, which must be specified in any procedure or query. Failure to comply with the criteria described in the Guide for authors will lead to rejection (topic outside the scope of the journal or duplication of content) or return of the manuscript for correction before starting the evaluation process.

Each submitted paper will be checked for possible plagiarism using iThenticate®. If the tool detects a similarity greater than 10 % with respect to other published works —in the introduction, results and discussion, and conclusions sections—, the submitted paper will be definitively rejected.

Peer review

The scientific review of contributions is carried out under the double-blind modality through the Editorial Manager®. This system allows detailed monitoring of this process and offers special formats for the issuance of decisions and communication with the corresponding author.

Once the contribution has been approved in the initial review and the reference key has been assigned, the Editor-in-Chief will invite at least two reviewers to evaluate the manuscript. The reviewers must be peer experts on the manuscript’s subject and not be affiliated with the authors' institution. If a reviewer declines the invitation, does not complete his or her assignment within the indicated period, or the opinion is not well-founded, the Editor-in-Chief will invite another reviewer or ask the same reviewer to explain his or her decision until at least two reviews have been completed.

At the end of the review of the contribution, the reviewers' decision can be:

• Accepted. This implies that the manuscript will be published as submitted.
• Minor review. This type of decision is founded on grammatical, technical and formatting deficiencies.
• Major revision. This criterion includes suggestions for changes in the methodological design, the presentation of results, clarification of techniques or experiments, or inclusion of data that give scientific validity to the results and conclusions of the contribution.
• Rejected. This opinion indicates that the contribution cannot be considered for publication in the way it was presented.

Based on the comments made by the reviewers, the Editor-in-Chief will issue a single opinion to be sent to the corresponding author by email.

If the contribution is accepted, an email will be sent to the authors with the decision and the bank account details for depositing the recovery fee for the publication process.

If the manuscript is designated for a minor or major review, the authors must address the observations made by the reviewers. If the authors do not agree with any suggested change, they must fully justify the lack of attention to said comment. Once the author has made the proposed changes, he or she must upload the new version of the manuscript into the Editorial Manager® system along with a response sheet, which must include a detailed response to each observation and the part of the article (section or line) where the change was made. Authors must make sure not to include their names on the response sheet to continue with the double-blind review.

If there is no response from the author within the period established for addressing the observations, the article will be rejected. If the authors require more time to make corrections, the corresponding author must send an email through the Editorial Manager® system specifying the requested time.

Upon receipt of the corrected contribution, the Editor-in-Chief will forward it to an Assistant Editor, who will be responsible for:

1. Reviewing the second version of the contribution.
2. Reviewing and resolving any possibly contradictory aspects between the reviewers' opinions and the authors' well-reasoned assessments.
3. Issuing an opinion on the second version, which will be reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief to verify that an adequate evaluation has been carried out in accordance with the Editorial Policy. If the Editor-in-Chief considers the Assistant Editor's review to be inadequate, he or she may invite another Assistant Editor or carry out the evaluation.

This process (review by the Assistant Editor) is carried out up to two times, at which point the contribution may be accepted or rejected.

Once the contribution has been accepted, the authors must send, by email, the copyright transfer letter to initiate the publication process, which consists of editing and style correction, translation, design, and online publication of the contribution. At each stage, the corresponding author will receive an email for approval.

The Editor-in-Chief has the authority to determine the date on which the contribution will be published, depending on resource availability.

Complaints and appeals

The corresponding author may appeal decisions issued by the RCHSH regarding errors detected in the processor or changes suggested by the referees, the Associate Editors, or the Editor-in-Chief, as well as the rejection of the manuscript. To that end, the corresponding author may submit an appeal, which will be processed in accordance with the following procedure:

1. The corresponding author shall have a maximum of 10 business days, starting from the day following the date of notification of the decision, to file the initial appeal. Once this period has elapsed, your right to initiate this proceeding will expire.
2. The corresponding author will send the Editor-in-Chief, via email, a written appeal that must contain:
   1. Name of the corresponding author, email address, telephone number, as well as the title and key number of the manuscript subject to the contested resolution, proposed for publication in the RCHSH.
   2. A concise and detailed statement of the grounds for the appeal, along with the technical and evidentiary arguments supporting the claim.
   3. Handwritten signature or advanced electronic signature in the margin on each page of the document, and at the bottom of the last page.
3. Within a maximum of 30 business days, the Editor-in-Chief will resolve the appeal by means of a duly reasoned and substantiated decision. This decision will be based on the manuscript, the reviews (from the Editor-in-Chief, the Associate Editor, and the reviewers), and, where applicable, the opinion of external experts in the field. The decision will consider the normative criteria used by the reviewers, scientific and technical advances, and current linguistic consensus, in accordance with the guidelines of the corresponding language.
4. For the evaluation of the arguments and documents submitted, the principles of logic, sound judgment, and the established practices of the international scientific community will be considered.

Final appeal. If the corresponding author considers that the resolution issued by the Editor-in-Chief of the RCHSH in the initial appeal does not comply with the institution's regulations, he or she may submit a final appeal to the Editorial Committee within a maximum of 15 business days, starting from the day after receiving notification via email.

The final appeal procedure will be substantiated and definitively resolved within a period not exceeding 20 business days, exhausting the instance within the editorial scope of the institution.

Frequency of publication

Starting in 2025, the RCHSH switched to an annual, continuously published format. The journal is edited by the Coordinación de Revistas Institucionales (Coordination of Institutional Journals) of the Universidad Autónoma Chapingo. From 1994 to 2024 (volumes 1 through 30), the journal was published quarterly.

Journal funding

The RCHSH is partially funded by the Universidad Autónoma Chapingo, through the Dirección General de Investigación, Posgrado y Servicio, which oversees the Coordinación de Revistas Institucionales. This office is directly responsible for providing the editorial tools and processes necessary for the publication of accepted submissions.

The RCHSH, being a non-profit organization, does not advertise commercial brands or scientific or institutional events.

Article publishing charge

Beginning in 2025, contributions accepted for publication in the Revista Chapingo Serie Horticultura are exempt from article processing charges (APCs). To ensure a diamond open access model (completely free of charge) and to guarantee that knowledge remains a public good without barriers, the Universidad Autónoma Chapingo covers all operating costs, including peer review, copyediting, translation, DOI assignment, interoperability services, website maintenance, and more.

Publication fee exemption policy

In certain cases, upon request and justification, the Editor-in-Chief may decide to waive the publication fee for some papers, provided that all the authors of the contribution are affiliated with institutions in developing countries.

Use of artificial intelligence (AI)

The RCHSH allows the use of AI only to improve the readability and language of the contribution. If applicable, the contribution must include a description of the technologies used and what was generated with them.

Authors are responsible for supervising, reviewing, and editing information obtained using AI, as these technologies may generate incorrect information.

Under no circumstances may authors include AI as a co-author in the contribution, as this implies performing activities that can only be attributed to humans.

The RCHSH does not allow the use of generative AI or AI-assisted technologies (such as ChatGPT, Deepseek, or Claude) by reviewers and editors in the peer review process, to protect the rights of authors and the confidentiality of their research.

Privacy and confidentiality policy

The RCHSH’s privacy policy is based on the provisions of the General Law on the Protection of Personal Data Held by Obligated Entities (LGPDPPSO) and the General Guidelines on the Protection of Personal Data for the Public Sector, and is detailed in the document Simplified privacy notice: submission of scientific articles for publication in institutional journals, which can be consulted at: https://revistas.chapingo.mx/public/site/pdf/cori_DP-en.pdf

Digital preservation policy

The RCHSH ensures the long-term preservation, accessibility, and integrity of its digital content through institutional storage, backup, and interoperability mechanisms.

The content published in digital formats (PDF, HTML, and XML JATS) is hosted on external servers linked through an institutional domain of the Universidad Autónoma Chapingo, which ensures operational stability, continuous availability, and open access to scientific content.

The digital preservation strategy includes performing weekly backups of websites, editorial files, and associated databases, with the purpose of preventing data loss and ensuring content recovery in the event of technical contingencies.

Furthermore, the journal maintains active Digital Object identifiers (DOI) and interoperability mechanisms through OAI-PMH and XML-JATS (SciELO SPS), which facilitates the traceability, harvesting, and integration of articles into national and international indexing systems and academic platforms.

As the journal is indexed in SciELO Mexico, its content is preserved and made available in full text in accordance with international standards for scientific publishing.

Interoperability and metadata policy

The RCHSH offers interoperability services through the OAI-PMH protocol (Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting), accessible via the following URL: https://revistas.chapingo.mx/horticultura/oai

The platform implements an advanced interoperability scheme that allows the exposure of structured metadata in Dublin Core and JATS XML format (SciELO SPS), facilitating integration with indexing systems, institutional repositories, and national and international scientific dissemination platforms.

In addition, it incorporates enriched metadata, interoperability with DOIs, links to PDFs, and compatibility with academic retrieval systems and external query services.

Self-archiving policy

The authors retain their property rights over the contribution, and therefore may deposit, self-archive, disseminate, or distribute the final published version in national or international repositories, as well as on personal websites, academic networks, and other open access media, in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license.

Therefore, the RCHSH does not establish embargoperiods or restrictions for the deposit or dissemination of published articles. Self-archiving may be done immediately after publication of the manuscript in its final version or in advance publication format.

Every version of the deposited manuscript must include the full reference to the original publication (authorship, year of publication, title of the article, name of the journal, volume, article number, and DOI) to guarantee the correct attribution, citation, and traceability of the work.

Open access policy

The RCHSH, together with the Universidad Autónoma Chapingo, recognizes that to improve the process of dissemination of scientific knowledge, it must be accessible to any user without any legal or economic barrier. Therefore, authors who publish in the RCHSH accept the following terms and conditions:

• Based on copyright legislation, the RCHSH recognizes and respects the moral rights of authors, as well as the ownership of the property rights of their work, which will be ceded to the Universidad Autónoma Chapingo through the signing of a copyright transfer agreement, in which they explicitly recognize that their work will be disseminated under the open access principles established by the journal.
• Authors may make other independent and additional contractual agreements for the non-exclusive distribution of the final version of the published article (such as including it in an institutional or thematic repository, hosting it on academic social networks, or disseminating it on electronic or printed platforms). This is provided that the document is clearly and explicitly stated as having been first published in the RCHSH, that the reference is placed as proposed on the first page of the article, and that the respective digital object identifier (DOI) is included.

Licensing

All content published in the RCHSH is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license. This means that readers/users may freely access all content published in the journal, as well as cite, share (in print and electronic format), print, and distribute the documents, as long as it is clearly and explicitly mentioned that the document was first published in the RCHSH and the respective DOI is included. Likewise, the material cannot be used for commercial purposes.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license