Crop Science run by and for you

In 2021, I will be taking on a new position in service to CSSA, that of president-elect. While I am honored at the trust and responsibility being given to me, I'm leaving the position of Crop Science Editor somewhat sadly. I have found being Editor to be so much fun that I often didn't count it as work. Partnering with authors to create journal content every month is incredibly rewarding. The technical editors, associate editors, reviewers, and ACSESS staff have been a great team to work with, and they are all so professional and conscientious that they made my job much easier. In addition to putting out the bimonthly issues that Crop Science has been publishing since 1961, during my time as Editor, we published six special issues (https://bit.ly/3kiujyV) with one more in the works. The special issues are a direct response to the interests and energy of our members, who propose, organize, and contribute to the issues. We also published our first virtual issues as we experiment with new ways of compiling and highlighting papers for our readers.

The current publications climate is difficult; with new and even predatory journals sprouting like weeds, new open access publishing to navigate, and an impact factor that I am convinced does not reflect our true impact. In my past travels to other agricultural science institutions, I always found Crop Science on the shelves of the offices and libraries, regardless of where in the world I was. I believe we are still the go-to publication where agricultural scientists can find the latest research on crop, forage, and turf breeding, physiology, ecology, production, and genetic resources. We continue to rank in the top third of the nearly 100 journals in the Agronomy division within Clarivate, and our impact factor has risen every year for the past five years. Nevertheless, with so many newer, higher impact factor journals for authors to choose from, we find it difficult to convince them to submit their best work to Crop Science. Finding high quality reviewers is getting more difficult as well as competition from so many other journals reduces the number of willing participants in our peer-review process.

Despite these difficulties, I believe our future as a journal is bright. Improvements in our impact factor and time to final decision make Crop Science more competitive. Our hardworking editorial board has been responsive to your requests for improvement. And we continue to find or create new opportunities for ourselves. We have had several new initiatives, including the special issues, commissioned reviews, outstanding paper awards, and a new social media editor. I highly encourage members to take advantage of these opportunities and to get more involved in new activities to keep the journal relevant and interesting. This may include helping to create special issues and review articles, volunteering to be interviewed for a podcast about your work, agreeing to be a reviewer or associate editor, and publishing your best research with us or our sister journals.

Be sure to browse journal content each month for work your colleagues have published and that you may be able to build upon and cite. Remember that what sets Crop Science apart from so many of the other journals is that this is YOUR journal, and it is run by and for you. I am convinced that the quality of our publication reflects the excellent quality of our members’ work and is and will continue to remain high. I am handing over the leadership to our new editor, Dr. Paul Scott, and I know journal leadership is in good hands; but Crop Science itself will excel because of our members. Thank you and keep up the good work!