Guidelines for the Authors (JBRTC)

Aims and Scope

Journal of Bulb, Root & Tuber Crops (JBRTC) is a peer-reviewed open-access international journal that publishes original research, reviews and short reports on the most recent developments in innovative research on essential and common edible underground crops including ‘Geophytic Crops’, which are morphologically structured by their underground storage organs such as bulbs, roots, tubers, and corms or rhizomes.

In addition, JBRTC also focuses on biotechnology and new breeding techniques, crop production and engineering, pathology, pest control, postharvest and management as well as economic importance of underground crops. 

The journal operates a double-blind peer-review policy. Every article will be freely and indefinitely accessible online. Articles are published as soon as possible after acceptance and in 2 issues of a volume per year.

The Journal welcomes articles on the following topics, but is not limited to:

Agricultural biodiversity and ecology 

Agricultural information and economics

Agricultural production, engineering and management

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies 

Bioinformatics, genomics and proteomics for genetically modified crops

Biological and pharmacological activities

Biotechnology, breeding and genetics

Chemical composition

Crop nutrition, irrigation and management

Economics and marketing

Engineering and utilization

Environmental impact on crop production and products

Fertilizers, plant nutrients and soil sciences

Geophytic crops

In silico and bioinformatics applications

Irrigation technology

Nematology

Nutritional and non-nutritional composition

Organic farming

Pathology

Pest control

Physiology

Plant disease

Plant molecular biology

Postharvest systems and technology

Rhizomes

Shelf-life, safety and quality assessment

Spectroscopic method of identification (e.g. IR, UV, GC-MS, LC-MS/MS, QTOF, NMR)

Sustainable farming

Stress resistance/tolerance 

Toxicology and risk assessment

Virology

Weed management

List of common Bulb, Root and Tuber Crops 

Allium ascalonicum (Shallot)

Allium cepa (Onion) 

Allium sativum (garlic)

Alpinia galangal (Galangal)

Amorphophallus galbra (Yellow lily yam)

Amorphophallus konjac (Konjac)

Apios americana (Hog potato or groundnut)

Apium graveolens var. rapaceum (Celery root)

Arctium lappa (Burdock root)

Armoracia rusticana (Horse-radish) 

Arracacia xanthorrhiza (Arracacha)

Arthropodium spp. (Rengarenga, Vanilla Lily, and others)

Beta vulgaris (Beetroot)

Brassica spp. (Kohlrabi, Rutabaga and Turnip)

Camassia quamash (Blue camas)

Canna spp. (Canna)

Colocasia antiquorum (Eddoe or Japanese potato)

Colocasia esculenta (Taro)

Conopodium majus (Pignut or earthnut)

Cordyline fruticosa (Ti)

Curcuma longa (Turmeric)

Cyperus esculentus (Tigernut or chufa)

Daucus carota (Carrot)

Dioscorea polystachya (Nagaimo, Chinese yam, Korean yam, mountain yam, white ñame)

Eleocharis dulcis (Chinese water chestnut)

Helianthus tuberosus (Jerusalem artichoke or sunchoke)

Hemerocallis spp. (Daylily)

Ipomoea batatas (Sweet potato)

Ipomoea costata (Desert yam)

Lathyrus tuberosus (Earthnut pea)

Lepidium meyenii (Maca)

Manihot esculenta (Cassava or yuca or manioc)

Maranta arundinacea (Arrowroot)

Microseris lanceolata (Murnong or yam daisy)

Mirabilis expansa (Mauka or chago)

Nelumbo nucifera (Lotus root)

Oxalis tuberosa (Oca or New Zealand yam)

Pachyrhizus spp. (Jicama and Ahipa)

Panax ginseng (Ginseng)

Pastinaca sativa (Parsnip)

Pediomelum esculentum (Breadroot, tipsin, or prairie turnip)

Petroselinum spp. (Parsley Root)

Plectranthus edulis (Kembili)

Plectranthus esculentus (Dazo)

Raphanus sativus (Radish, Daikon)

Sagittaria spp. (Arrowhead or Wapatoo)

Scorzonera hispanica (Black salsify)

Sium sisarum (Skirret)

Smallanthus sonchifolius (Yacón)

Solanum tuberosum (Potato)

Stachys affinis (Chinese artichoke or Crosne)

Stachys sieboldii (Japanese Artichoke)

Taraxacum spp.(Dandelion)

Tragopogon spp. (Salsify)

Tropaeolum tuberosum (Mashua or añu)

Ullucus tuberosus (Ulluku)

Vigna lanceolata (Bush carrot or bush potato)

Xanthosoma spp. (Malanga, cocoyam, tannia, yautia and other names)

Zingiber officinale (Ginger, galangal)

Preparation of Manuscript for JBRTC

Types of articles

The Journal of Bulb, Root & Tuber Crops (JBRTC) accepts the following contributions:

Research articles 

The length of research papers is not limited. However, in the best interests of the readers and the dissemination of the work, we strongly advise the authors to be concise.

Review articles

Review articles on subjects of current perspectives and reader interest are welcomed and encouraged. Reviews should be brief, not exceeding 4 to 20 printed pages. Authors are requested to write review articles prior consult with the Editor-In-Chief and submit an outline to the journal editorial office before preparing their manuscripts.

Short communications 

Short Communications have the following soft limits. The manuscript should ideally contain no more than 5-7 Figures/Tables, it must be within 2 to 5 printed pages, including the title page, all sections of the manuscript (including the references), and Figure/Table legends. The abstract should be limited to 200 words.

Peer review

All papers are subject to double binder peer review. The Journal has an identified panel of expert reviewers. However, the editor may seek additional reviewers by requesting it from the corresponding authors if the topic of a paper requires.

Article file format

Authors are requested to use the Microsoft Word template with Palatino Linotype theme font to prepare their article. Margin:1 cm on all sides, Font size: 12, spacing: double.

Manuscript style

Title page

The title needs to be clear and precise. The title page must list the full title, short title of up to 100 characters and the names and affiliations of all authors must be listed on the title page. Author (s) must provide the detailed address, including email, telephone and fax, of the author who will check the proofs.

Please include a Cover Letter at the beginning of the title page. Please explain why your manuscript should be published in the JBRTC in your covering letter, along with a declaration of any potential competing interests. The authors must confirm that all authors have read and approved the manuscript for submission and the manuscript has not been published, or submitted for publication elsewhere.

Abstract

The abstract should not exceed 250 words for all articles. An abstract is a concise summary of the whole paper, which is not just the conclusion and is comprehensible without referencing to the rest of the paper. It cannot provide any citation to other published work.

Keywords

Use 6-10 keywords that describe your paper best.

Introduction

A concise introduction is required of the background to the subject, its significance and its relationship to earlier works, with references.

Materials and methods 

Materials and methods should be presented with clarity and detail. Authors who purchased/collected the plant materials from companies/any authorized organization, must mention the voucher specimen number for future works/references. In the case of commercial extract, the extraction procedure from the organism of origin must be specified. State the methods and important techniques in this section. The physical and spectroscopic data for new compounds must be comprehensive. Illustrate these with figures or tables where necessary but keep these to a minimum. Authors are requested to submit their additional documents as a supplementary file (word/excel/Pdf format).

Results and discussion 

Results and discussion can be presented separately or combined in one section. Results should include the findings of the study including, if appropriate, results of statistical analysis which must be included either in the text or as tables and figures. For research articles, discussion section should discuss the implications of the findings in the context of existing research and highlight the limitations of the study.

Conclusions

State the conclusions clearly in a few sentences that you have drawn from the findings and provide key recommendations. Do not include references in the conclusion section.

Tables and figures

You must number the tables and figures (e.g., table 1, table 2, table 3; fig.1, fig. 2, fig. 3) and reference them in the text. Place the tables at the end of the main text. Tables should be in an editable format, and not embedded as an image file. You must include figure titles and legends in the manuscript file—they should not be included in the image file.

Sections and subsections

Distribute your article into clearly defined and numbered sections. Subsections should be numbered 1.1 (then 1.1.1, 1.1.2, ...), 1.2, etc. (the abstract is not included in section numbering).

Assure the following

Abbreviations

Please define unfamiliar abbreviations at the first occurrence.

Supplementary materials 

Supplementary materials will be published online alongside the manuscript (figure, tables, video, spreadsheets, etc.). Please indicate the name and title of each element as follows Figure S1:, Table S1: etc.

Declarations:
All manuscripts must contain the following sections under the heading 'Declarations':
·       Authors' contributions
·       Consent for publication
·       Acknowledgements
·       Funding
·       Conflicts of interest
·       Institutional review board statement

Author contributions 

Author contributions should be based on each author’s contributions. For research articles with more than one author, a short paragraph specifying their contributions must be included. The following statements should be used "Conceptualization, X.X. and Y.Y.; Methodology, X.X.; Software, X.X.; Validation, X.X., Y.Y. and Z.Z.; Formal Analysis, X.X.; Investigation, X.X.; Resources, X.X.; Data Curation, X.X.; Writing – Original Draft Preparation, X.X.; Writing – Review & Editing, X.X.; Visualization, X.X.; Supervision, X.X.; Project Administration, X.X.; Funding Acquisition, Y.Y.”,

Consent for publication

If your manuscript contains any individual person’s data in any form (including any individual details, images or videos), consent for publication must be obtained from that person, or in the case of children, their parent or legal guardian. All presentations of case reports must have consent for publication.

Acknowledgements  

Please acknowledge anyone who contributed to the article and does not meet the criteria for authorship including anyone who provided professional writing services or materials. Authors should obtain permission to acknowledge from all those mentioned in the Acknowledgements section.

Funding:

Please cite full funding information, including specific grant numbers if you have any. Funding acknowledgements should be written in the following form: “This work was supported by the Medical Research Council [grant number xxx]”. If the research was not supported by any specific project grant, use the following statement: “This research received no specific grant from any funding agency “(the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors)”.

Conflicts of Interest

Conflicts of interest must be mentioned in the manuscript. Authors must identify and declare any personal circumstances or interests that may be perceived as influencing the representation or interpretation of reported research results. If there is no conflict of interest, please state "The authors declare no conflict of interest."

Institutional review board statement/approval (Ethical consent)

Institutional review board statement approval number for studies involving humans or animals must be included. Please note that the Editorial Office may ask you for further information. Please add “The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Institutional Review Board (or Ethics Committee) of NAME OF INSTITUTE (protocol code XXX and date of approval).” OR “Ethical review and approval were waived for this study, due to REASON (please provide a detailed justification).” OR “Not applicable” for studies not involving humans or animals. You may choose to exclude this statement if the study has no involvement with humans or animals.

References must be numbered (for example [1], [1–3] or [1, 3]) in order of appearance in the text (including table captions and figure legends) and listed individually at the end of the manuscript. We recommend the authors to prepare their references with a bibliography software package, such as EndNote, Reference-Manager or Zotero, and Mendeley to avoid typing mistakes and duplicated references.

Referencing styles

References should be described as follows, depending on the type of work:

Journal Articles:

Gilli, P.; Bertolasi, V.; Ferretti, V.; Gilli, G. Evidence for resonance-assisted hydrogen bonding. 4. Covalent nature of the strong homonuclear hydrogen bond. Study of the O-H–O system by crystal structure correlation methods. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1994, 116, 909–915

Davenport, C.F.; Rai, N.; Sharma, P.; Deeks, J.; Berhane, S.; Mallet, S.; Saha, P.; Solanki, R.; Bayliss, S.; Snell, K.; et al. Menopausal status, ultrasound and biomarer test in combination for the diagnosis of ovarian cancer in symptomatic women. Cochrane Database Syst. Rev. 2022, 7, in press.

Books and Book Chapters

Miller, J.N.; Miller, J.C. Statistics and Chemometrics for Analytical Chemistry, 6th ed.; Pearson Education: London, UK, 2005

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Food and Drug Administration. Analytical Procedures and Methods Validation for Drugs and Biologics Guidance for Industry Analytical Procedures and Methods Validation for Drugs and Biologics Guidance for Industry; FDA: Silver Spring, MD, USA, 2015.

Conference

International Conference on Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Use. In ICH Harmonized Tripartite Guideline, Validation of Analytical Procedures: Text and Methodology Q2 (B); PharmaLogica, Inc.: Charlotte, NC, USA, 2005.

Proceedings

Khachaturyan, M.V.; Klicheva, E.V. The function of neural networks in strategic management of restaurant business. In Proceedings of the 34th IBIMA Conference, Madrid, Spain, 13–14 November 2019.

Weerathunga, P.R.; Xiaofang, C.; Samarathunga, W.; Kmmcb, K. Application of entropy based TOPSIS in analysis of sustainability performance of Sri Lankan hotels. In Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Innovation and Management, University of Jaén, Jaén, Spain, 27–30 January 2016.

Thesis:

Uotila, K. Optimization of Early Cleaning and Precommercial Thinning Methods in Juvenile Stand Management of Norway Spruce Stands. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland, 2017.

Websites:

Title of the URL. (archived/accessed on day month year). Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Guideline No. 62: Management of Suspected Ovarian Masses in Premenopausal Women. 2011. Available online: https://www.rcog.org.uk/globalassets/documents/guidelines/

gtg_62.pdf (accessed on 1 October 2015)

Graphical abstract:

A graphical abstract is an image that summarizes the whole content of an article. It will appear alongside the title in the Table of Contents on the journal website. The graphical abstract should consist of a high-quality image (at least 300 dpi) as illustration or diagram (JPEG, PNG, TIFF, or SVG) with clear and easily readable text. The recommended size is 560 × 1100 pixels (height × width). Please include a graphical abstract at the end of the article or a separate file as JPEG, PNG, TIFF, or SVG.

Changes to authorship

Authors are expected to list the authors name and order them carefully before submitting their manuscript and provide the definitive list of authors at the time of the original submission. Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript has been accepted and only if approved by the journal Editor. To request such a change, the Editor must receive the following from the corresponding author: (a) the reason for the change in the author list and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, letter) from all the authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed. Only in exceptional circumstances, the Editor will consider the addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors after the manuscript has been accepted. At the time of considering the request, publication of the manuscript will be suspended. If the manuscript has already been published online, any requests approved by the Editor will result in a corrigendum.

Proofs

The proofs will be sent to the author(s) via an e-mail notification. Authors must ensure that any mistakes in authors′ names and affiliations, duplicate numbering of tables, figures, or references match text citations and that figure legends correspond to the text citations and actual figures. Proofs must be returned within 72 hours of receipt of the email. If you run into any problems while proofreading, please contact the editorial office.

Reprints

The corresponding author can get 10 complimentary copies of the reprint that will be made available on payment basis (not less than 50 USD, excluding shipping charge) upon request. An e-copy (PDF file) of the published article will be sent to the corresponding author via e-mail.

Copyright
Authors must agree to submit the transfer of the copyright to the editorial office after acceptance of the manuscript. The authors must declare that the current work described has not been published before (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture, or thesis) and is not currently being considered for publication elsewhere.

Article processing charge (APC)

The Journal of Bulb, Root & Tuber Crops (JBRTC) applies no article processing charge (APC) currently.

Article submission

Please submit your article to the

E-mail: jbrtc@currentsci.com

jbrtc.csp@gmail.com

managing-editor@currentsci.com

Submission checklist

1.          Read the aims and scope of the journal carefully to assess the 

        suitability of your article.

2.          Ensure the graphical abstract

3.          Ensure the manuscript format according to the journal instruction

4.          Your manuscript is not affected by plagiarism.

5.          Revise the manuscript for spelling and grammar.

6.          The manuscript has been 'spell checked' and 'grammar checked'.

7.          All references mentioned in the 'Reference List' are cited in the  

        text, and vice versa.

8.          Permission for the use of the copyright materials or other sources

        (internet) is ensured.

9.          Relevant declarations of interest have been made.

10.      The journal policies have been followed according to the

        guideline.

Please complete your submission to JBRTC

Before processing your article, please confirm the following items

1.     A cover letter must be included with each manuscript submission.

2.     Article must consist of the following headings:

Abstract

Introduction

Materials and methods

Results and discussion

Conclusions,

Acknowledgements,

Funding, Authors contribution

Conflict of interest

Document should be in MS word format (Palatino linotype font)

References of the MS must comply with the JBRTC style.

3.     Three to five potential and valid reviewers in that field who are willing to review your article.

4.     Full name of the authors (no abbreviation allowed) with details of affiliation and E-mail address.

5.     ORCID ID of the authors (essential for linking to Researchgate, Google scholar and other search engines)

Declaration

The article must be distinct and original, and it must be verified that the content, table, and figures are not copy-pasted as well as AI generated. Otherwise, the authors will accountable for retraction upon publication.

The corresponding author must declare that the manuscript (in part or full) has not been submitted to any journal for possible evaluation/publication or has not been published elsewhere. For more information, Please read the COPE guidelines.