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Phytopathogenomics and Disease Control (PDC) the official journal of the Society for Innovative Agriculture (SIA), is an international journal, published in English, Biannual .
Original Articles: Original articles must present scientific results that are essentially new and should be structured according to the guidelines given below.
Review Papers: Review papers should be comprehensive, fully referenced expositions of subjects of general interest, including background information and detailed critical analyses of current work in the field and its significance, often with figures and drawings. They should be designed to serve as source materials.
Perspectives Articles: Perspectives articles provide a brief perspective on recent developments in relevant fields. Note that these should not be full reviews, which should instead be submitted as Review Papers.
Methods Papers: We welcome papers describing new or improved methods. Please note that methods that are highly specialized and useful only for a relatively small group of researchers will not be considered with priority. We aim for papers that are of broader interest. The paper can be presented in a protocol-style or narrative method-style.
Opinion Papers: This category allows researchers to present a new synthesis of the field, future projections, or discussions and speculations that go beyond the level of a standard Review Paper. These are opinionated narratives that help the research field forward.
Manuscripts should be submitted online at Paper Submission System . The submitting author, who is generally the corresponding author, is responsible for the manuscript during the submission and peer-review process. The submitting author must ensure that all eligible co-authors have been included in the author list and that they have all read and approved the submitted version of the manuscript. To submit your manuscript, register and login to the submission portal. Once you have registered, click here to go to the submission form. Authors are encouraged to use Microsoft Word (font Times new Roman, size 12) to prepare their manuscript.
Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously, that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, including electronically without the written consent of the copyright-holder. To verify originality, articles will be checked by the originality detection service Turnitin or other.
During the submission process, authors will suggest three potential reviewers with the appropriate expertise and contact information (name, official e-mail, and affiliation) to review the manuscript. The editors will not necessarily approach these referees. The proposed referees should neither be current collaborators of the authors nor have published with any of the authors of the manuscript within the last five years. Proposed reviewers should be from different institutions to the authors. Authors may suggest reviewers from among the authors that they frequently cite in their papers.
The Editor-in Chief and Managing Editor are responsible for ensuring that all manuscripts meet the academic standards fit for publication and are published in a timely fashion. The editors oversee each article's individual progress through the journal's submission system and are responsible for liaising with authors, reviewers, and Editorial office.
All submitted manuscripts received by the Editorial Office are checked by a professional in-house staff to determine whether the manuscripts are properly prepared and followed the ethical policies of the journal. Manuscripts that are not properly prepared are returned to the authors for revision and resubmission. The manuscripts that do not fit the journal's scope or do not meet the standards of the journal or scientifically insignificant are rejected before peer-review by the Managing Editor.
Once a manuscript passes the initial checks, it is assigned to at least two independent outside experts for peer-review by a Subject Editor. Potential reviewers suggested by the authors may also be considered. However, the reviewers should not have published with any of the authors during the past five years and should not currently work or collaborate with any of the institutions of the authors of the submitted manuscript. Peer review comments are confidential and are only be disclosed with the corresponding author keeping the anonymity of the reviewer.
If a revision is invited, the corresponding author submits the revised manuscript, and the final decision is taken by the relevant Subject Editor based on the information gained through the peer-review process.
Editorial staff/editors shall not be involved in processing their own academic work. Submissions authored by editorial staff/editors will be assigned to at least two independent outside reviewers by another Editorial Board Member who do not have a Conflict of Interest with the author and similarly the decision shall be made by the same Editorial Board Member.
The Subject Editor will communicate the decision, which will be one of the following:
The paper is in principle accepted after revision based on the reviewer’s comments. Authors are given 7 days for minor revisions.
The acceptance of the manuscript would depend on the revisions. The author needs to provide a point-by-point response of the reviewer’s comments. Usually, only one round of major revisions is allowed. Authors are asked to resubmit the revised paper within a suitable time frame, and the revised version is returned to the reviewer for further comments.
The article has serious flaws, and/or makes no significant contribution. No offer of resubmission to the journal is provided.
It is possible that authors may wish to withdraw their manuscript after submission to the journal. Possible reasons could include major technical error, or the desire to submit the results to a different journal. In all such cases, manuscripts can of course be withdrawn at the authors’ discretion.
Authors may appeal a rejection by sending an e-mail to the Editorial Office of the journal. The appeal must provide a detailed justification, including point-by-point responses to the reviewer’s comments. The Managing Editor of the journal will forward the manuscript and related information (including the identities of the referees) to the Editor-in-Chief or Editorial Board member to give an advisory recommendation on the manuscript and may recommend acceptance, further peer-review, or uphold the original rejection decision. A reject decision at this stage is final and cannot be reversed.
Once accepted, the manuscript will undergo professional copy-editing, English editing, proofreading by the authors, final corrections, pagination, and publication on the journal website.
The responsibility for the preparation of a paper according to the layout and style of the journal lies with the author(s). The research papers, not according to the format of the journal, will not be accepted. Sample Paper
These sections should appear in all manuscript types.
Iqrar, M., M. Ismat, R.H. Qureshi, S. Nawaz and I.A. Mehmood. 1994. Paddy yield affected by planting techniques in a salt-affected soil. Journal of Global Innovations in Agricultural Sciences 31:401-405.
Steel, R.G.D. and J.H. Torrie. 1980. Principles and Procedures of Statistics: A biometrical approach, 2nd ed. McGraw Hill Book Co., New York.
Wiseman, J. 1990. Variability in the nutritive value of fats and non-ruminants, pp. 232-234. In: J. Wiseman and J.A. Cole (Ed.), Feedstuffs Evaluation. Butterworths, London.
Muhammad, S. and A. Ghafoor. 1986. Reclamation of two saline-sodic soil series through subsoiling and gypsum application using marginal water for leaching, pp. 221-223. In: R. Ahmad and A.S. Pietro (Eds.), Prospects for Biosaline Research. Proc. US-Pak. Biosaline Res. Workshop, 22-26 Sept. 1985. University of Karachi, Karachi, Pakistan.
Kirkegaard, J.A. 1990. Effect of compaction on the growth of pigeon pea on clay soils. Ph.D. diss., Dept. Soil Sci., Univ. Queensland, Australia.
National Agricultural Statistics Service. 1997. Crops County data. Available online at http://usda.mannlib.comell.edu/data-sets/crops/9X100
Ministry of Finance. 2009. Economic Survey of Pakistan 2008-09. Finance and Economic Affairs Division, Ministry of Finance, Govt. of Pakistan, Islamabad, Pakistan.
Experimental research involving plants, whether they are cultivated or wild, must adhere to institutional, national, or international guidelines. Authors are advised to adhere to the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
Every submitted manuscript should include genetic information and specify the origin of the plant material. For studies focusing on rare and non-model plants (excluding common model plants like Arabidopsis thaliana, Nicotiana benthamiana, Oryza sativa, etc.), voucher specimens must be placed in an accessible herbarium or museum. These vouchers may be requested by future researchers to confirm the identity of the materials used, especially if there are taxonomic changes in the future. They should include collection site details (GPS coordinates), collection date, and documentation of the part(s) utilized in the study, if applicable.
Ethical Statement: Psidium guajava trees were used in this study. Pear-shaped fruit with pink flesh (FrP) and Pear-shaped fruit with white flesh (FrW) cultivars selected from orchard (name of farm, city, country) were kindly provided by Dr. XX (name of institute, city, country).
The well-being of animals involved in research must be upheld. When presenting findings from experiments involving animals, authors are required to specify adherence to international, national, and/or institutional protocols for animal care and use. Authors are expected to adhere to the widely accepted principles known as the 3Rs and provide detailed information on housing, care, and pain management in their manuscripts. Additional guidance can be found in documents such as the Code of Practice for the Housing and Care of Animals Used in Scientific Procedures, American Association for Laboratory Animal Science or European Animal Research Association.
Additionally, confirmation of approval from a research ethics committee within the conducting institution or practice should be provided (if such a committee exists). Authors should furnish the name of the ethics committee and the corresponding permit number.
For studies involving animals, the following statement should precede the References section:
When documenting research involving human participants, authors are obligated to disclose that the studies have received approval from the relevant institutional and/or national research ethics committee and have been conducted in accordance with the ethical principles outlined in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its subsequent revisions or similar ethical standards. If there is uncertainty regarding adherence to the 1964 Helsinki Declaration or equivalent standards, authors must elucidate the rationale behind their approach and provide evidence that the independent ethics committee or institutional review board has explicitly sanctioned any questionable aspects of the study.
In cases where a study has been exempted from requiring ethics approval, this exemption should be clearly delineated in the manuscript, including the identity of the ethics committee granting the exemption and the reasons for it. Regardless of the circumstance, authors are required to specify the name of the ethics committee and the corresponding reference number when applicable.
The following statements should precede the References section of the manuscript:
The editorial team will carefully review all ethical statements. Manuscripts that do not have a suitable ethical statement will be sent back to the authors and will not be considered until an appropriate and clear statement is added.
Authors must include sex and gender considerations where relevant and follow the SAGER guidelines. It is important for authors to differentiate between the terms sex (biological attribute) and gender (influenced by social and cultural contexts) accurately to prevent confusion. Clear indication of the relevant sex(es) should be provided in article titles and/or abstracts. Authors should outline in the background whether sex and/or gender differences might be anticipated, detail how these factors were addressed in the study design, present disaggregated data by sex and/or gender when suitable and discuss corresponding findings. In cases where a sex and/or gender analysis was not conducted, authors should explain the rationale in the discussion section. The authors must review the complete guidelines prior to submission.
Authors must consider borders and territories when describing their research or in author or editor correspondence, and all territorial disputes should be respected. The editorial team will work to resolve any dispute or complaint that is acceptable to all parties involved. Editors stay neutral regarding jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
The authors must follow the code of conduct and guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) when a misconduct is suspected or alleged. The following issues are highlighted.
Where author or peer reviewer misconduct is identified, a due process will be followed to investigate the issue, giving those involved a right to appeal in a formal way. The publisher and editor(s) will deal with the allegations of research misconduct according to COPE guidelines.
A clear policy regarding corrections and retractions is defined which differentiate among Addendum, Erratum, Corrections, Retractions (or Partial Retractions), and Comments.
Addendum: If crucial results (e.g., additional affiliation, clarify some aspect of methods/analysis, etc.) were unintentionally omitted from the original publication, the original article can be amended through an Addendum. The Addendum will be published, with article numbers added, in the current issue of the journal. A hyperlink to the Addendum will also be added to the original publication, but the original paper does not need to be updated.
Erratum: Errata should be published for scientifically relevant formatting changes, or changes to authorship if the author or contributor list is incorrect when a deserving author has been omitted or somebody who does not meet authorship criteria has been included. Scientifically relevant formatting issues that require an Erratum might include missing or unclear figures, or errors introduced during proofreading (e.g., missing text). Minor errors that do not affect readability or meaning (e.g., spelling or grammatical errors) do not qualify for an Erratum. All authors should proofread the final version carefully.
Corrections: Corrections should be submitted for any scientifically relevant errors in published articles. 1) Any changes may be evaluated by the academic editors. 2) Any changes after publication that affect the scientific interpretation (e.g., changes to a misleading portion of an otherwise reliable publication, an error in a figure, error in data that does not affect conclusions, or addition of missing details about a method) are announced using a Correction. This is a separate publication that links to the original paper, which is updated. A note will also be added to the Article Versions Notes and to the abstract page, which tells the readers that an updated version was uploaded.
Retractions: Sometimes an article needs to be completely removed from the body of research literature. This could be due to inadvertent errors made during the research process, gross ethical breaches, fabrication of data, large amounts of plagiarism, or other reasons. Such articles threaten the integrity of scientific records and need to be retracted. SIA follows the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for retraction. Potential Retractions are thoroughly investigated by the Editorial Office with the support of the Editorial Board and final approval by the Editor-in-Chief. Other persons and institutions will be consulted as necessary, including university authorities, or experts in the field. If a Retraction is published, the original publication is amended with a “ RETRACTED” watermark, but will still be available on the journal’s website for future reference. However, retracted articles should not be cited and used for further research, as they cannot be relied upon. Retractions are published using the same authorship and affiliation as the article being retracted, with page numbers added, as a separate item in the current issue of the journal. That way, so that after the issue is released, the Retraction can be marked within the indexing databases. Partial Retractions might be published in cases where results are only partially wrong. A paper will only be completely removed in very exceptional circumstances, where leaving it online would constitute an illegal act or be likely to lead to significant harm. Expression of Concern for complex, inconclusive, or prolonged situations, an Expression of Concern may be published. If investigations into alleged or suspected research misconduct have not yet been completed or prove to be inconclusive, an editor or journal may wish to publish an Expression of Concern, detailing the points of concern and what actions, if any, are in progress.
Authors should follow COPE guidelines and disclose in their manuscript the use of AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process by following the instructions below. A statement will appear in the published work. Please note that authors are ultimately responsible and accountable for the contents of the work.
Disclosure instructions: Authors must disclose the use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process by adding a statement at the end of their manuscript in the core manuscript file before the References list. The statement should be placed in a new section entitled ‘Declaration of Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process’.
Statement: “During the preparation of this work the author(s) used [Name Tool /Service] to [Reason]. After using this tool/service, the author(s) reviewed and edited the content as needed and take(s) full responsibility for the content of the publication”. However, this declaration does not apply to the use of basic tools for checking grammar, spelling, references etc. If there is nothing to disclose, there is no need to add a statement.
This is a self-financed Open Access journal, not supported by any agency or government. Article printing charges are the only source of income. These resources support operating expense, including copyediting, typesetting, long-term archiving, and journal management.
All articles are published in full Open Access. There are no processing charges for submitted articles. To provide free access to readers, and to cover the costs of peer review, copyediting, typesetting, long-term archiving, and journal management, an article printing charges of PKR 25,000 (national) and US$ 200 (international) applies to papers accepted after peer review. The Article Printing Charges (APC) are based on reduced rates for authors of low- and middle-income countries.
We consider individual waiver requests for articles on a case-by-case basis, and they may be granted in cases of lack of funds. To apply for a waiver, please request during the submission process. A decision on the waiver will normally be made within three working days. Requests made during the review process or after acceptance will not be considered.