Society flagship journals name 2026 Outstanding Paper Award finalists

The American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America are pleased to announce the finalists for the Outstanding Paper Award for each Society through their three flagship journals: Agronomy Journal (ASA), Crop Science (CSSA), and the Soil Science Society of America Journal (SSSAJ). Authors of the winning papers will be acknowledged during an awards ceremony at the CANVAS 2026 meeting in Portland, OR, Nov. 1–4, 2026. 

The process for being acknowledged as a finalist or receiving this award starts with you submitting your work to one of the flagship journals published by our Societies. Following submission, your paper will be reviewed by experts who have the goal of providing constructive suggestions. Whether the paper is accepted or rejected, we believe that the reviews will help you improve the quality of the paper. Following acceptance, our Societies may promote your work through various means such as webinars, video summaries, plain language summaries, podcasts, awards, social media, magazine articles, and emails.

Published papers for the prior two years are considered for the Society Outstanding Paper Award. Finalists for this award are selected based on the number of citations and full-text views. The final selection for this award is made by a highly qualified committee that may include the Society’s president, editor-in-chief, journal editor, technical editors, and an additional Society member appointed by the president for a given Society. The committee will evaluate the selected works for clarity, originality, and importance. All finalist papers are truly outstanding, and they represent less than 1% of the submitted papers. We encourage you to read these papers below.

In 2026, the Outstanding Paper Award finalists were selected from 467 papers (from Agronomy Journal) for the ASA Society Award, 477 papers (from Crop Science) for the CSSA Society Award, and 327 papers (from the Soil Science Society of America Journal) for the SSSA Society Award.

Finalists for the ASA Society Award for Outstanding Paper

Finalists for this award are chosen from ASA’s flagship journal, Agronomy Journal. The journal publishes reviews and original research in agriculture, natural resources, soil science, crop science, agroclimatology, agronomic modeling, production agriculture, crop genetics, plant breeding, and instrumentation.

Sustainable Sweetpotato Production in the United States: Current Status, Challenges, and Opportunities by Justin George, Gadi V. P. Reddy, Phillip A. Wadl, William Rutter, Julianna Culbreath, Pierre W. Lau, Tahir Rashid, Matthew C. Allan, Suzanne D. Johaningsmeier, Amanda M. Nelson, Ming Li Wang, Augustine Gubba, Kai-Shu Ling, Yan Meng, Daniel J. Collins, Sathish K. Ponniah, Prasanna H. Gowda. https://doi/10.1002/agj2.21539

Should We Consider Integrated Crop–Livestock Systems for Ecosystem Services, Carbon Sequestration, and Agricultural Resilience to Climate Change? By Alan J. Franzluebbers and John R. Hendrickson. https://doi.org/10.1002/agj2.21520

A Review of Intercropping Systems in Western Canada by Vengai Mbanyele, Rebecca Oiza Enesi, Lana Shaw, and Linda Yuya Gorim. https://doi.org/10.1002/agj2.21622

Persistence and Disadoption of Sustainable Agricultural Practices in the Mississippi Delta Region by Santosh Pathak, Hua Wang, Dat Q. Tran, and Naveen C. Adusumilli. https://doi.org/10.1002/agj2.21519

Perspective of US Farmers on Collaborative On-Farm Agronomic Research by Carlos B. Pires, Fernanda S. Krupek, Gabriela I. Carmona, Osler A. Ortez, Laura Thompson, Daniel J. Quinn, Andre F. B. Reis, Rodrigo Werle, Péter Kovács, and Maninder P. Singh. https://doi.org/10.1002/agj2.21539

A Critical Review of the Factors Influencing Pre-Harvest Sprouting of Wheat by S. I. Hull, P. A. Swanepoel, and W. C. Botes. https://doi.org/10.1002/agj2.21701

Assessing Relationships of Cover Crop Biomass and Nitrogen Content to Multispectral Imagery by Jarrod O. Miller, Amy L. Shober, and Jamie Taraila. https://doi.org/10.1002/agj2.21554

Soil Inoculation With Nitrogen-Fixing Bacteria to Supplement Maize Fertilizer Need by Logan P. Woodward, Connor N. Sible, Juliann R. Seebauer, and Frederick E. Below. https://doi.org/10.1002/agj2.21729

Long-Term Tillage and Cover Cropping Differentially Influenced Soil Nitrous Oxide Emissions From Cotton Cropping System by Jashanjeet Kaur Dhaliwal, Facundo R. Lussich, Sindhu Jagadamma, Sean M. Schaeffer, and Debasish Saha. https://doi.org/10.1002/agj2.21661

Cover Crops, Double-Crop Soybean, and Nitrogen Rates Affect Productivity and Profitability of a No-Till Rotation by Elizabeth Yeager, Peter Tomlinson, Giovani Preza Fontes, Jessica Grunberg, J. Anita Dille, Kevin Arnet, and Kraig Roozeboom. https://doi.org/10.1002/agj2.70037

Economics of Strip Cropping With Autonomous Machines by A. K. M. Abdullah Al-Amin, James Lowenberg‑DeBoer, Bruce J. Erickson, John T. Evans, Michael R. Langemeier, Kit Franklin, and Karl Behrendt. https://doi.org/10.1002/agj2.21536 

Finalists for the CSSA Society Award for Outstanding Paper

Finalists for this award are chosen from CSSA’s flagship journal, Crop Science. The journal publishes reviews, interpretive articles, and original research on any aspect of crop science, including agronomy, physiology, and genetics.

Plant-Based Protein Crops and Their Improvement: Current Status and Future Perspectives by Asheesh K. Singh, Dinakaran Elango, Joscif Raigne, Liza Van der Laan, Ashlyn Rairdin, Chandrakant Soregaon, and Arti Singh. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.21389

Production and Cultivation Dynamics of Millets in India by O. P. Yadav, D. V. Singh, Vandita Kumari, Manoj Prasad, Sushmita Seni, Roshan Kumar Singh, S. Sood, Lakshmi Kant, B. Dayakar Rao, R. Madhusudhana, B. Venkatesh Bhat, S. K. Gupta, D. K. Yadava, and T. Mohapatra. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.21207

Genetic Gains in Short-Season Corn Hybrids: Grain Yield, Yield Components, and Grain Quality Traits by Kyle King, Antonella Ferela, Tony J. Vyn, Slobodan Trifunovic, Doug Eudy, Charles Hurburgh, Kendall R. Lamkey, and Sotirios V. Archontoulis. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.21199

Do Newer Maize Hybrids Grow Roots Faster and Deeper? By Cintia Sciarresi, August Thies, Christopher Topp, Douglas Eudy, Slobodan Trifunovic, Alejo Ruiz, Philip M. Dixon, Fernando Miguez, Lee C. Burras, and Sotirios V. Archontoulis. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.21208

Litchi Postharvest Physiology and Handling by Chao Chia Huang, Robert E. Paull, and Tsu-Tsuen Wang. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.21274

Severe Storm Damage and Short-Term Weather Stresses on Corn: A Review by Alexander J. Lindsey, Osler A. Ortez, Peter R. Thomison, Paul R. Carter, Jeffrey A. Coulter, Greg W. Roth, Daniela R. Carrijo, Daniel J. Quinn, and Mark A. Licht. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.21212