Submissions

Author Guidelines

Guide for authors

Dear authors, your manuscripts must be sent exclusively through the mail of the journal, at: bioagro@ucla.edu.ve  or alternate mail revistabioagro@gmail.com (only in case of failure of the official mail).

BIOAGRO is a journal that publishes original scientific papers in agricultural sciences that focus on aspects of agronomy, botany and plant breeding, entomology and zoology, soils, plant pathology and plant protection, agricultural engineering, genetics and plant breeding, ecology, animal husbandry, industry and agricultural processing, biotechnology and social topics.

There may also be published short articles in which scientific discoveries, technological developments and comprehensive diagnostics results are presented in the form of Technical Notes. All contributions will be peer-reviewed.

We will not consider reviews, opinion pieces, papers with preliminary results, or research advances.

It is understood that authors and co-authors are aware of the manuscript submission, and also attest that it has not been published or is being considered for publication elsewhere. For this, the authors must complete the format established as a commitment letter, in the format provided by the journal.

Structure of the manuscript 

The original manuscripts will be received in either English or Spanish. They will include Title, Author, Abstract (English and Spanish), Introduction, Materials and methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions and Literature cited, as follows (Technical Notes may have a slightly different structure):

Title. It should be clear, precise and complete, with a maximum of 20 words. The title will be presented in both English and Spanish.

Author. The name(s) of author(s) will follow the title, also indicating their affiliation (institution, postal address, and e-mail). Point corresponding author. Orcid code of each author must be included.

As of 2023, the journal accepts a maximum of six authors in each manuscript.

Abstract. The articles will be accompanied by an abstract in English and in Spanish (resumen) each not exceeding 250 words, written in one paragraph. This should include information on the importance of the subject and objectives of the work, methods, main results and conclusions.

Additional keywords. Authors must provide three to five keywords related to the topic of the manuscript, but not included in the title. They will be arranged alphabetically.

 Introduction. The presentation of the problem in a relevant manner that highlights the importance and approach of the problem. It includes the bibliographic support which presents a background of the problem. References will not be used to indicate results of similar work, which will be reserved for the discussion section. Generally, numerical results of other investigations are not presented. This section will finish pointing the objectives of the study.

Materials and methods. It must describe the experimental conditions and the materials used, and explain in detail the research methods applied for the experiment execution. Research on crop production in the open field should present basic soil and climatological information. This section is written in past tense and must be completed indicating the robust statistical tests used to objectively analyze the results. The HSD Tukey’s test is highly recommended.

Results. They are written in past tense and constitute the core of the scientific paper. Here, it will be described in a logical, objective, accurate and easy way to understand the results and major trends of the work, which will be expressed mainly in the form of tables and figures, and all data in these must be legible on a single page view. The description of results should not repeat the information contained in the tables and figures, but rather emphasize the most important ones.

Discussion. This represents the rigorous analysis or interpretation by the author of the research results. It serves, as well, to compare them with the results of other authors. Bibliographic references used in this section have a different function compared to those used in the introductory section.  The results and discussion may be presented together with the subtitle "Results and Discussion".

Conclusions. They will indicate clearly and concisely the facts found and new contribution to science. They must be extracted directly from the results, excluding discussion. Speculation or deductions not presented or proven by the research should be avoided. Nor giving opinions or information about something that was already known before conducting the research. The conclusions keep direct association with the title and objectives of the paper. Eventually, they may derive in recommendations which would be included with the subtitle "Conclusions and Recommendations".

Literature Cited. They are the references of the documents that have been cited in the body of the paper. They must be recorded as numbered in alphabetical order and chronological suborder. It is essential that all the references cited in the text are in this list, and vice versa. It is very important that, during the writing of the manuscript, the creation of an automatic list of references in Word is not activated because this prevents each reference from being treated and commented as individual by the reviewer.

The style of conventional references will be as follows:

 Journals. Last name and initial (s) of the first author (reverse this order for the others). Always use the conjunction "and" before the last author. Year. Paper title. Journal title, volume, number and pages. Keep same spacing and punctuation marks according to the following example:

• Kibria M., M. Hossain, Y. Murata and A. Hoque. 2017. Antioxidant defense mechanisms of salinity tolerance in rice genotypes. Rice Science 24(3): 155-162.
• Hernández-Valencia, I., D. Guitián and V. González. 2020. Toxicidad de suelos contaminados con petróleo pesado sobre plántulas de la palma moriche Mauritia flexuosa L. f. Bioagro 32(2): 117-122.

Books with chapters written by different authors. Author's last name, initial of first name, year of publication, name of article (lowercase letters),  editor  of  the  book  (preceded by the Latin word In:), name of the book (capital letters), publisher and city, and corresponding pagination. Example:

• Jones, J.B. 1998. Field Sampling Procedures for conducting a plant analysis. In: Yash Kalra (ed.). Reference Handbook of Methods for Plant Analysis. CRC Press. Boca Raton, Florida. pp. 25-35.

Books. Author’s last name, initial of first name, year of publication, title of the book, editorial and city. Example:

• Havlin, J.L., J.D. Beaton, S.L. Tisdale and W. L. Nelson. 1999. Soil Fertility and Fertlizers. An Introduction to Nutrient Managment. Prentice Hall. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Additional Information:

- The articles will be sent electronically to bioagro@ucla.edu.ve and have a maximum of twenty (20) pages, including tables and figures.

-Only in case of failure of the official mail, the articles will be received by the alternate mail: revistabioagro@gmail.com 

- Articles should be written on letter size paper using Times New Roman 12 with 1.5 spaces. The four margins will be 2.5 cm, without text justification, and single column format.

- The biological terminology should be governed by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN) and the International Code of Nomenclature of Bacteria (ICNB). Physical, chemical and biochemical terminology must follow the rules of the Nomenclature of Committee of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). Likewise, the international standard abbreviations and units of the modern metric or International System (SI) must be used, with the exception that ton (t) is accepted.

- The acronyms SD (standard deviation) and SE (standard error) do not require identification.

- The scientific names of plant and animal species will always be written in italics.

- The bibliography must be well updated according to databases of last year, depending on the central topic of the manuscript. Exceptions may include some fundamental methods, biological nomenclatures or keys, or classical numerical techniques. The names of the journals will be written as they appear on their letterhead. No second order references or references not affordable through libraries or databases such as internal reports, mimeographed or local events will be accepted; neither thesis with more than five-year age, nor abstracts presented at non-recent events.

- No more than three references will be used to support a unique idea, and multiple citations to support single concepts should be avoided. Citations will be prepared with a single surname of the authors, and arranged chronologically.

- The initials in the name of the authors always carry a period. When an author has more than one initial, they are placed together (without separation).

- The Latin expression et al. (no italics) will be used when a paper with more than two authors is mentioned.

- If any bibliographic reference has more than seven authors, the reference is truncated and "et al." written after the sixth author. If you have seven authors, the reference is not modified.

- Conventional figures should be prepared in Excel. The drawings and other images should be sent digitized.

- An article may be published in two or more parts (I, II, etc.), when at least the first two parts are received simultaneously.

- A poor drafting of the manuscript may be a sufficient condition for its rejection.

- Articles written in English must show excellent use of the language. Bioagro will not process manuscripts with deficient English writing.

- Authors of rejected manuscripts may send their appeals to the e-mail of any member of the Editorial Board.

- It is required that the corresponding author provides an appropriate e-mail that allows a rapid exchange of information.

- No subscription is required to submit papers to Bioagro, and the first author can submit up to two manuscripts per year.

- The journal may accept a maximum of 20% of similar text according to the iThenticate anti-plagiarism software.

- In case of publication of the manuscript, there will be a charge per published page  (see https://revistas.uclave.org/index.php/bioagro/about#fee).