Announcements

Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395) is an international and cross-disciplinary scholarly journal on agronomy and agroecology published monthly online by MDPI. Agronomy is recruiting Editorial Board Members whose research interests are related to agronomy and agroecology. Please find more details at https://www.mdpi.com/journal/agronomy/sections.

We already have some highly renowned experts on our Editorial Board, and we are looking for more excellent scholars in this field to join us. If you are interested in this position or know of any potential candidates who you would like to recommend, please contact the Agronomy Editorial Office (agronomy@mdpi.com). We look forward to hearing from you.

The main responsibilities of Editorial Board Members are as follows: 

• Pre-screening submissions and making decisions on whether a manuscript should be accepted or rejected for processing, as well as suggesting additional reviewers if necessary;
• Acting as Guest Editor of a Special Issue in your particular field of expertise, or recommending potential topics and Guest Editors;
• Promoting Agronomy and increasing its visibility at related academic conferences;
• Advising on the journal’s development. 

Agronomy Editorial Office

We welcome the following 68 recognized researchers, who recently joined the Editorial Board of Agronomy:

Prof. Dr. Guang-Wei Ding, Northern State University, Aberdeen, SD, USA
Prof. Dr. Cherubino Leonardi, University of Catania, Unict, Italy
Dr. Ping An, Arid Land Research Center, Tottori University, Japan
Dr. Xian Xue, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Dr. Catherine Picon-Cochard, French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRAE), Université Clermont Auvergne (UCA), France
Prof. Dr. Carmen Galan, University of Cordoba, Spain
Prof. Dr. Susana Redondo-Gómez, Universidad de Sevilla, Spain
Dr. Sanja Cavar Zeljkovic, Crop Research Institute & Crop Research Institute, Šlechtitelů 29, 78371 Olomouc, Czech Republic , Czech Republic
Dr. Hamid Ashrafi, North Carolina State University, USA
Dr. Jiafa Luo, Land & Environment, AgResearch, Hamilton, New Zealand
Prof. Dr. Martin Gierus, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Austria
Dr. Agnes van den Pol-van Dasselaar, Aeres University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands
Dr. Rajko Vidrih, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Dr. Zengming Chen, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Dr. Maria Arlene Adviento-Borbe, United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service, USA
Prof. Dr. Shahjahan Khan, University of Southern Queensland, Australia
Prof. Pedro Palencia, Oviedo University, Spain
Dr. Massimiliano Probo, Grazing System - Animal Production Systems and Animal Health - Agroscope (CH), Switzerland
Dr. Baohua Zhang, Agricultural University, China
Dr. Frédéric Marsolais, London Research and Development Centre, Canada
Prof. Dr. Wei Zhang, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Prof. Dr. Murat Kacira, The University of Arizonadisabled, USA
Dr. Miguel-Ángel Muñoz-García, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain
Dr. Francesca Taranto, Institute of Biosciences and Bioresources (CNR-IBBR), Italy
Prof. Dr. Jesús Martín-Gil, Universidad de Valladolid, Spain
Dr. Francesca Valerio, Institute of Sciences of Food Production, Bari, Italy
Dr. Chenggen Chu, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Washington, DC, USA
Prof. Dr. C.B. Rajashekar, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66503, USA
Dr. Víctor Manuel Rodríguez, CSIC - Mision Biologica de Galicia, Pontevedra, Spain
Dr. Baskaran Stephen Inbaraj, Catholic University, Hsinchuang, Taiwan
Dr. Sanghamitra Majumdar, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Little Rock, AR, USA
Dr. Zalmen Henkin, Agricultural Research Organization of Israel, Bet Dagan, Israel
Dr. Zhigang Li, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USA
Prof. Dr. Stephen J. Novak, Boise State University, Boise, ID 83725, USA
Dr. Michael O'Donovan, Animal and Grassland Innovation Centre, Ireland
Prof. Dr. Helena Freitas, University of Coimbra, Portugal
Prof. Dr. Marjana Regvar, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Dr. José Luis Santiago Blanco, CSIC, Spain
Dr. Shuyu Liu, Texas A&M University/AgriLife Research, USA
Dr. Susana Pascual, Plant Protection Department Spanish National Institute for Agricultural and Food Research and Technology (INIA), Spain
Prof. Dr. Pedro Talhinhas, Universidade de Lisboa, Tapada da Ajuda, Portugal
Dr. Xiangchao Gan, Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Germany
Dr. Marta Francisco, Spanish National Research Council-Misión Biológica de Galicia, Spain
Dr. Arno Rosemarin, Stockholm Environment Institute, Stockholm, Sweden
Dr. Eliseu José Guedes Pereira, Federal University of Viçosa, 36570-900 Viçosa, MG, Brazil
Dr. Maria Céu Lavado da Silva, Instituto Superior de Agronomia, Universidade de Lisboa, Oeiras, Portugal
Dr. Ivo Toševski, CABI, Switzerland
Dr. Sergio Molinari, Institute for Sustainable Plant Protection, National Research Council of Italy (IPSP-CNR), Bari, Italy
Dr. Michel Lecoq, CIRAD, France
Dr. Robert Lascano, USDA ARS Southern Plains Agricultural Research Center, USA
Prof. Dr. Mario Cunha, University of Porto (FCUP), Portugal
Prof. Dr. Zhi Min Yang, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China
Prof. Dr. Fabio Francesco Nocito, Università degli Studi du Milano, 20122 Milano, Italy
Dr. Rebekah Oliver, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, USA
Dr. Ricardo Bressan-Smith, Universidade Estadual do Norte Fluminense, Brazil

Further details about the Editorial Board can be found at: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/agronomy/editors.

Agronomy Editorial Office

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Christos Athanassiou has been appointed as Section Editor-in-Chief of " Pest and Disease Management” in Agronomy.

We are also pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Pedro Javier Zapata has been appointed as Section Editor-in-Chief of "Agricultural Engineering" in Agronomy.

We warmly welcome Prof. Dr. Christos Athanassiou and Prof. Dr. Pedro Javier Zapata in taking up their roles as Section Editors-in-Chief and look forward to them leading Agronomy to achieve many more milestones.

We are pleased to announce the winners of the Agronomy 2019–2020 Best Cover Awards. In total, 24 cover stories published from 2019 to 2020 in Agronomy were considered for these awards.

The winners are as follows:

• Agronomy, Volume 9, Issue 8 (August 2019)“Pursuing the Potential of Heirloom Cultivars to Improve Adaptation, Nutritional, and Culinary Features of Food Crops”
  (doi: 10.3390/agronomy9080441)

• Agronomy, Volume 10, Issue 7 (July 2020)
  “Improving the Red Color and Fruit Quality of ‘Kent’ Mango Fruit by Pruning and Preharvest Spraying of Prohydrojasmon or Abscisic Acid”
  (doi: 10.3390/agronomy10070944)

The winners of the “Agronomy 2019–2020 Best Cover Awards”, in no particular order, will receive 100 CHF each.

Congratulations to the winners for their excellent research!

Agronomy Editorial Office

It is our great pleasure to announce that Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395) has received an increased CiteScore (2020 Scopus data) of 2.6 for the year 2020, which equals the rank of 119/347 (Q2) in "Agronomy and Crop Science"

We would like to extend our sincerest gratitude to all the authors, reviewers, and editors who have contributed to the journal and enabled this achievement!

Agronomy Editorial Office

MDPI Books recently released Book Builder, a new online tool to conveniently arrange, design and produce an eBook from any content published in MDPI journals. Book Builder offers two functions: on the one hand (1) Selections, available to every registered user of MDPI; on the other hand (2) Special Issue Reprints, which can be used exclusively by Guest Editors of Special Issues.

Selections

In just a matter of a few clicks, all users are now able to assemble books from MDPI articles and receive instantaneous feedback in the form of a fully produced and compiled book (PDF), which can be downloaded or ordered as print copy. Selections can include any paper published with MDPI, picking and combining content from different journals and special issues.

This way, the user may for example choose to compile an ebook focusing around a particular topic, or assemble articles from a group of others.

We invite you to make yourself familiar with the new tool! The Book Builder can be found here: https://www.mdpi.com/books/book_builder.

Special Issue Reprints

The Book Builder allows Guest Editors of MDPI journals to create a reprint from a successfully completed Special Issue or Topical Collection in book format. If you are a Guest Editor for an MDPI journal, you can use the new tool  to create an PDF document which includes all articles published in the Special Issue as well as a book cover and table of contents.

For Special Issues containing a minimum of 5 articles, the Guest Editor can request its publication on the MDPI Book platform. Published reprints are assigned an ISBN and DOI.

In addition to the PDF copy of the Reprint Book, as a token of our gratitude, MDPI offers every Guest Editor one (1) complimentary print copy (via print-on-demand). All contributors benefit from a discount on orders of any additional print copies, to share with colleagues or libraries or others.

Why choose MDPI Books?

In line with our organization's values, MDPI Books publishes all content in open access, promoting the exchange of ideas and knowledge in a globalized world. MDPI Books encompasses all the benefits of open access—high availability and visibility, as well as wide and rapid dissemination. MDPI Books are distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution License, meaning as an author you retain the copyright for your work. In addition, with MDPI Books you can complement the digital version of your work with a high-quality printed counterpart.

If you are interested in editing a book volume or series, or have a monograph manuscript to be considered for publication, please submit your proposal online and look at our Information for Authors.

Contact: Laura Wagner, MDPI Books Manager (email)

In June of this year, MDPI will celebrate the 25th anniversary of its foundation. To mark this significant milestone, we have created a 25th Anniversary page on our website that evokes the development of our company over the past quarter-century.

MDPI has been a pioneer of Open Access publishing ever since the concept was first created.

In a wide-ranging interview, our CEO Delia Mihaila reflects on the company’s 25th anniversary and its contribution to the world of scientific publishing.

Delia considers how MDPI has evolved since starting life in 1996 as a visionary ‘project’ run out of an apartment in Basel, Switzerland, by Dr. Shu-Kun Lin. A chemist who was passionate about the long-term preservation of rare chemical sample, Dr. Lin was determined to help scholars publish their findings as quickly as possible and make their research results available to as wide a readership as possible worldwide. That determination remains unchanged 25 years later.

Today, MDPI is an international organization with over 4,000 employees based on three continents and in ten countries, and ranks among the world's top four academic publishers.

MDPI's mission is to accelerate access to new scientific research, delivering insight faster for researchers worldwide. Read more here about the company's remarkable success story and what the Open Access publishing model can offer the global scientific community.

Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395), is an international and cross-disciplinary scholarly journal on agronomy and agroecology published monthly online by MDPI. Agronomy is recruiting Editorial Board Members whose research interests are related to agronomy and agroecology. Please find more details at https://www.mdpi.com/journal/agronomy/sections.

We already have some highly renowned experts on our Editorial Board, and we are looking for more excellent scholars in this field to join us. If you are interested in this position or know of any potential candidates you would like to recommend, please contact the Agronomy Editorial Office (agronomy@mdpi.com). 

The main responsibilities of Editorial Board Members are as follows: 

• Pre-screening submissions and making decisions on whether a manuscript should be accepted or rejected for processing, as well as suggesting additional reviewers if necessary;
• Acting as Guest Editor of a Special Issue in your particular field of expertise, or recommending potential topics and Guest Editors;
• Promoting Agronomy and increasing its visibility at related academic conferences;
• Advising on the journal’s development. 

We look forward to hearing from you.
Agronomy Editorial Office

We welcome the following 40 recognized researchers, who recently joined the Editorial Board of Agronomy:

Dr. Javier Terol, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Agrarias IVIA, Valencia, Spain
Prof. Dr. Xiangnan Li, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130102, China
Dr. Junhua Peng, Hunan Agricultural University, China
Prof. Jianlong Li, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China
Dr. Chiara Corbari, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy
Dr. Daozhi Gong, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China
Prof. Dr. Siegrid Steinkellner, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna, Austria
Dr. J. Antonio Cortinas Rguez, University of Vigo, 32002 Ourense, Spain
Dr. Massimo Zaccardelli, CREA Research Centre for Vegetable and Ornamental Crops, Italy
Dr. Francesc Xavier Prenafeta Boldú, Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology (IRTA), Spain
Dr. Yang Zhu, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
Dr. Jörg Schaller, Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Germany
Prof. Dr. Linchuan Fang, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China
Prof. Dr. Luis Hernández-Callejo, University of Valladolid, Valladolid, Spain
Dr. Rose Brodrick, CSIRO Agriculture and Food , Canberra ACT 2601, Australia
Dr. Jorge Ferreira, US Salinity Laboratory, USA
Dr. Guillem Pérez-Jordà, University of Valencia, Spain
Dr. Niels P. Louwaars, Wageningen University and Plantum, Wageningen, The Netherlands
Dr. Marie France Corio-Costet, Department of Plant Health and Environment, French National Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE), France
Prof. Michael Heinrich, UCL School of Pharmacy, UK
Dr. Carla Gentile, University of Palermo | UNIPA, Palermo, Italy
Prof. Dr. Cinzia Margherita Bertea, University of Torino, Italy
Dr. Aiming Qi, University of Hertfordshire, UK
Dr. Jorge Paz-Ferreiro, RMIT University, Australia
Dr. Longjiang Fan, Zhejiang University, China
Dr. Koki Toyota, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Japan
Dr. Jie Zhao, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Dr. Danilo Scordia, University of Catania, Italy
Prof. Dr. Gniewko Niedbała, Poznań University of Life Sciences, Poland
Dr. Ivan Francisco Garcia Tejero, Andalusian Institute of Teaching and Agricultural Researcher (IFAPA), Spain
Assoc. Prof. Magdalena Sobocińska, Wroclaw University of Economics and Business, Poland
Prof. Dr. Rosa Maria Fanelli, University of Molise, Italy
Prof. Dr. Piotr Prus, UTP University of Science and Technology in Bydgoszcz, Poland
Dr. Antonia María Rojano-Delgado, University Cordoba, 14014 Cordoba, Spain
Dr. Marco Medici, Alma Mater Studiorum-University of Bologna, 40127 Bologna, Italy
Dr. Andrea Liliana Clavijo McCormick, Massey University, New Zealand
Dr. Gianluca Allegro, University of Bologna, Italy
Dr. Xiangjun Zou, South China Agricultural University, China
Prof. Dr. Witold Grzebisz, Poznan University of Life Sciences, Poland
Prof. Dr. Francis Drummond, University of Maine, USA

Further details about the Editorial Board can be found at: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/agronomy/editors.

The editorial team would like to congratulate the winners of the Agronomy 10th Anniversary Best Paper Award, who were chosen by a Selection Committee chaired by the Editor-in-Chief, Prof. Dr. Peter Langridge. Following a review process by the Evaluation Committee, six winners were selected. The winners of the “Agronomy 10th Anniversary Best Paper Award” are as follows:

Article:

The First Award: (800 CHF + a certificate)

Long-Term Effects of Biochar-Based Organic Amendments on Soil Microbial Parameters
Martin Brtnicky, Tereza Dokulilova, Jiri Holatko, Vaclav Pecina, Antonin Kintl, Oldrich Latal, Tomas Vyhnanek, Jitka Prichystalova and Rahul Datta
Agronomy 2019, 9(11), 747; doi:10.3390/agronomy9110747
Available Online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/9/11/747
“It was a very pleasant experience to publish the present work with the cooperation of Agronomy. I appreciate being able to work with a high-quality professional team at Agronomy, who rapidly moved us through the review and proof correction process. I hope more and more influential articles will be published in Agronomy in the future.”

The Second Award: (600 CHF + a certificate)

Effect of Gibberellic Acid on Growth, Yield, and Quality of Leaf Lettuce and Rocket Grown in a Floating System
Alessandro Miceli, Alessandra Moncada, Leo Sabatino and Filippo Vetrano
Agronomy 2019, 9(7), 382; doi:10.3390/agronomy9070382
Available Online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/9/7/382
“I’m very honored to accept The Second Award of Agronomy 10th Anniversary Best Paper Awards.  I accept this award on behalf of the co-authors who helped in preparing the paper. I would like to thank the colleagues of SAAF department of the University of Palermo who supported the efforts for developing this research, the Editors and the reviewers of Agronomy for their suggestions that helped to improve the article, all the readers of Agronomy who have spent their time in reading this article and, of course, my family.”

The Third Award: (300 CHF + a certificate)

Biomass Prediction of Heterogeneous Temperate Grasslands Using an SfM Approach Based on UAV Imaging
Esther Grüner, Thomas Astor and Michael Wachendorf
Agronomy 2019, 9(2), 54; doi:10.3390/agronomy9020054
Available Online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/9/2/54

“Thank you very much for selecting our paper for the „The Third Award of Agronomy 10th Anniversary Best Paper Awards“. I feel very honored and would also like to thank those who have supported my collegues and me to achieve this goal. It means a lot to us that the innovative topic of remote sensing is becoming increasingly important in agriculture and that we have been able to make our contribution.”

Review:

The First Award: (800 CHF + a certificate)

Plant Biostimulants: Importance of the Quality and Yield of Horticultural Crops and the Improvement of Plant Tolerance to Abiotic Stress—A Review
Magdalena Drobek, Magdalena Frąc and Justyna Cybulska
Agronomy 2019, 9(6), 335; doi:10.3390/agronomy9060335
Available Online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/9/6/335
“It is a big honor to obtain such eminent distinction. We are very grateful to Agronomy Editorial Office for selection our review article from between other excellent publications. I believe that our work will make a contribution to the broad recognizability of Agronomy journal. We also hope that our review about the influence of biostimulants on the quality of fruit and vegetables will help in spreading knowledge about scientific evidences of advantageous features of such agents and application of biostimulants will becoming popular between fruit and vegetable planters.”

The Second Award: (600 CHF + a certificate)

Increasing Sustainability of Growing Media Constituents and Stand-Alone Substrates in Soilless Culture Systems
Nazim S. Gruda
Agronomy 2019, 9(6), 298; doi:10.3390/agronomy9060298
Available Online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/9/6/298
"This award is a recognition for soilless culture and shows us how vital such systems in today horticulture are. Soilless culture is the key component of more intensive yet sustainable agriculture. We need research in crucial areas such as precision cultivation of high-quality products, and novel, environmental-friendly and climate-smart growing media to realise its potential. The interaction with well-qualified, independent reviewers within the fast track of the journal is appreciated. Hopefully, more papers on this topic will be published in Agronomy in the future."

The Third Award: (300 CHF + a certificate)

Microalgal Biostimulants and Biofertilisers in Crop Productions
Domenico Ronga, Elisa Biazzi, Katia Parati, Domenico Carminati, Elio Carminati and Aldo Tava
Agronomy 2019, 9(4), 192; doi:10.3390/agronomy9040192
Available Online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/9/4/192
“I am extremely honoured to be receiving this important award ‘The Third Award of Agronomy 10th Anniversary Best Paper Awards’. I am earnestly grateful for the recognition I have received for my work, regarding the valorisation and the use of microalgae as biostimulants and biofertilisers in crop productions.”

Please join us in congratulating the winners of the Agronomy 10th Anniversary Best Paper Award. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank all of our authors for their continued support of Agronomy.

Editor-in-Chief,
Prof. Dr. Peter Langridge, Agronomy