Mitigation approaches in agriculture

In my opinion, followings could be the mitigation approaches in agriculture engineering 

1. Reducing N2O emissions

2. Reducing leaching 

3. Carbon captured and storage

4. No tillage

5. Plant breeding

6. Agroforestry

7. Restoration of forest

8. wetland

9. Reducing dryland area

How to select appropriate journals in Agriculture ?

Hi folks, Today, I would like to share thoughts on the complex topic of how to select an appropriate journal for the prepared manuscript. This is one of the most difficult tasks in research work. If you have already published a manuscript then it does not mean that your other manuscript would be accepted easily. No one can assure you that he can publish your manuscript in an easier way. If you have someone in mind who is ideal for you in the concerned area then I would assure you that, they also have faced rejection and I believe they must have unpublished work too. 

Above all, I also noticed that some editors reject manuscripts based on the authors' profile to even your manuscript fitted well to the aim and scope with good quality data. I don't want to write specifically name but I have seen rejection five-time even though that manuscript has a big name. After all, it is a reality that we have to face it. Don't assume that there is any type of magic that can solve any problem within a minute.  Since I worked and published in agriculture journals below Figures 1 and 2 so I will talk about those journals but not specifically.

Figure 1: Published papers in reputed journals (https://sites.google.com/view/rk-srivastava/publications)

Figure 2: Published papers in reputed journals

Folks, It looks easy but it is still the most challenging task in reality. I noticed during my Ph.D., my most colleagues were confused about where to publish and how to get to publish manuscripts inappropriate journals even in Germany too. My colleagues are all confused too. Don't frustrate that you are alone there are many including me too.  You may select a journal yourself thereafter maybe you succeed in publishing articles too. But trust me, if it gets rejected the first time then rejection will increase a lot, and in the end, you will be frustrated. The easy way is to add someone's name who has published already or by asking to add your name. You would not believe this problem is everywhere and in western countries, people join with another hand or hire a specific person for publication purposes. Well, they have money too so for them it is not challenging to get the publication in comparison to a developing country. 

Where to get help

Well, I don't know too (Sorry😝). I tried to search on google and I get one website that shows some criteria to publish a journal for example Figure 3.

Figure 3: How to choose a journal

If you are interested to read something then here is something to read. You can download and read it (Figure 4) and if you are successful in pushing the article please comment below in the comment section.

Figure 4: Read this paper

Another website is below in Figure 5 with a link suggesting how to select appropriate journals. Somehow it looks good but what happens if you see some journals with the kind of same aim and scope.

Figure 5: A quick guide to select journals

Another last link screenshot of the website for spent time. Oh, I am tired now of taking these screenshots.

There are many websites for guiding publication but are they really helpful? Who can reply to me? 

Figure 6: Guide for publications

What is the actual problem?

Principally, I never take the help of this website and the reason is very clear. I finished my Ph.D. at IIT Kharagpur, India with a high facility. What about other universities or institutes which do not have facilities another question is really do all IITians enjoy these facilities or developed countries people. I have doubts about it. I remembered one colleague's statement which he used to say to me that he doesn't like to search and read articles despite his love to read books later I found that most students also don't like to search and read papers but they can read several books. This is the main problem from my point of view. If you come up with old material for publication definitely there are high chances of being rejected. 

So, you have to come up with new ideas with a new approach or at least you have to update with the new research and technology. Otherwise, for you, it is work and getting a degree but for them, it is business and in a more polite way, it is repetitive old work. Don't try to mess up with editors.

What to do?

The perfect answer is "Don't fly from the situation face it". If your manuscript get rejection then tries in another journal. Don't feel bad and remember those editors also faced rejection. The Thumb rule is that you need publication (Figure 7). It does not matter if it has or has not an impact factor. But if it has an impact factor or cites score it means your article will receive some citations in the future and if Journal has an h-index or alt metrics then the article will get more citations. Ultimately, after publication, you need citation with h-index too. Be careful, that journal must be indexed in SCI and if possible Scopus, google scholar, and many more (Check the journal website). Otherwise, your article will publish without knowing others and this is what we called it predatory journal. 

Figure 7: Criteria of good publication

Stay out of Predatory Journals

If you look carefully at predatory journals. Maybe you noticed that they are hardly indexed in many indexes. For example, if you look at MDPI Journals, they are mostly indexed in Proquest, Scopus, SCI and Google scholar and nothing else but if you look at Wiley, Springer, and Elsevier journals they are indexed in a lot of indexes. ACS, Nature journal has a lot more than Elsevier, Springer. That's why when anyone published their article in this publisher. They became happier by knowing that everyone will notice them. Think about that journal that takes the money and publishes your article and except for you no buddies know that you have publication. Your research has been wasted. At least the MDPI publisher will provide you open access. This is one simple idea I presented to you "how to identify predatory journal".

What should you do?

Well, there is some way to get the publication in a good publisher without wasting money and time but you have to follow strictly.

1. Listing appropriate journals

I think this is the most important and first step that you have to make a list of appropriate journals list for your prepared manuscript. I used to do with NAAS rating. It lists all journals except some Chinese, American, African, and South American journals including open-access journals too. Worst Indian journals considered with lower NAAS rating. However, it was a 10-year-old thing when i used to do during making a list of Journals thereafter I used to check the aim and scope of all of those. Much boring work I did in past. But now all publishers and other websites are allowing you to make a list of appropriate journals. Those websites are listed below. 

Suggested publisher's sites:

Elsevier

https://journalfinder.elsevier.com/

 Springer Nature

https://journalsuggester.springer.com/

Taylor and Francis

https://authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com/publishing-your-research/choosing-a-journal/journal-suggester/

Wiley

https://journalfinder.wiley.com/search?type=match

MDPI

https://www.mdpi.com/about/journalselector

Sage, Ednaj

https://www.edanz.com/journal-selector

JournalGuide

https://www.journalguide.com/

Jane

https://jane.biosemantics.org/

Endnote

https://endnote.com/product-details/manuscript-matcher/

(you must have an account)

ACS

https://acs.chronoshub.io/?fq=

ieee

https://publication-recommender.ieee.org/home;jsessionid=90D6A5FCBF940E6C31DB4025224A0FF8

Emreald 

https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/publish-with-us/publish-in-a-journal/find-a-journal

Hindwai

https://www.hindawi.com/journals/

RSC, Royal Society chemistry

https://pubs.rsc.org/is/search/advancedsearch

BMJ author

https://authors.bmj.com/before-you-submit/how-to-choose-a-journal/

You have to insert the title and abstract of your prepared manuscript then you can check the list of the appropriate journals with Journal titles, acceptance rate, best match rate, impact factor, and possible journal ratings i.e. Q1, Q2... or SCIMAGO, and many others depend on publishers what they have or allow. 

One additional suggestion Don't trust the "Acceptance rate" because these results are based on artificial intelligence and depend on which journals were searched more. You may notice that "Environment-based journals have more acceptance rate". Be careful, those journals do not accept agriculture manuscripts unless it is not related to the environment or environmental substance. Since agriculture has an impact on the environment too hence, those search results showed that environment journals. They will never accept your manuscript and they will return in a few days. So, my suggestion is to look best match score instead of the acceptance rate then you can look at the impact factor.

2. Check Aim and Scope

Yes, this is another crucial step. You may see that aim and scope of each journal are still similar and environmental-based journals have included that aim and scope which is related to or the same as agriculture journals but actually they are not. 

3. Some journals have the same aim and scope

Yeah, another crucial step to identifying the best journal with the same aim and scope. For example, Field crop research, European journal of agronomy, Agriculture and Forest Meteorology, Industrial and crop production, and Environmental and experimental botany have the same aim and scope and have little difference. You need very good eyes to identify the difference that comes after experience based on rejections😉.  

Just check another blog. I will write the basics differences between these Journals

4. Don't stop if it gets rejected

Yeah, never stop uploading your manuscript to other publishers if it gets rejection by an editor. There are several other publishers too such as ASCE, IWA, Hindawi, Taylor, and Francis, and Springer and there are many or you can submit as a book chapter. Don't let it go down.

5. Limitations

After publication, don't assume that your publication will get citations more and more immediately. In some cases, it works but not for every topic as I mentioned earlier if your article is published in a good indexed journal you will get more citations. Have patience guys!

6. Last but not least, Open Access Journals 

The whole thing is depend on money. Do you have money? I never had the money for my publications. No buddies provide money for these Journals. If you don't have money then go for subscription-based journals. They are still best. However, open aces journals provide fast review process and make it available for every one. Please note that publishing articles is good but it does not mean you will get citation immediately still you have to wait. One anther point, these publisher also looked to content carefully. So, if you don't have strong content or it is repetitive of older work then be ready to see rejection. It does not matter how much money you have. MDPI publisher can be option and you can publish in three days. As there review process is very fast.

Rest, as your wish after all it is your article. You have to decide what you want to see. All the best!

Adaptation strategy for maize crop

 Dear Friends,

I have noticed that the recently published most manuscript showed nitrogen and irrigation managements are the best adaptation strategy to cope with climate change. Unfortunately, they create environmental problem rather than increasing crop yield.

Identification of the appropriate management strategy and technologies to attain the aforesaid objective is critical. To head towards zero waste with agriculture while maintaining environmental sustainability in the future is even more daunting. Substantially, the environmental management systems can be balanced by eco-friendly practices in agriculture (manage the sowing dates), extended production responsibilities (planning for sowing management effects), and improved crop handling (reduction in water wastage). Thus, a balanced economy can be achieved by holistic and systematic thinking (crop modelling), toxic substances reduction/elimination (application of fewer fertilizers) leading to waste reduction. Apart from this, farmer awareness with the policies and ongoing research can also help in strategic management with agriculture, and thereby environment can easily be collaborated and outreached. (Srivastava et al., 2022)"

N Fertilizer

 High application of N fertilizers can create environment problem as when runoff occurs those fertilizers will become pollutant. Also, ammonia emissions will be higher due to dry surface because of extreme weather. Ammonia considered as green house gas which increase the climate change. Hence, in any condition, Fertilizer can not be good adaptation strategy. 

Irrigation

Further, irrigation will increase due to extreme temperature or warming climate. But, ground water is declining due to high demand for drinking and agriculture is the only sector which consume a lot of water. Hence, irrigation is also not the good adaptation strategy to cope with climate change.

Sowing dates

Other adaptation such as evolution of new variety is expensive. Hence, shifting sowing date can be a good adaptation strategy. But shifting sowing date is a local based management in India. As India is a diverse country and management can vary at regional level too. Hence local management based adaption strategy can be useful.  Moreover, the estimation of crop productivity was more significant on a local scale rather than on a regional one.  Implementing local approaches to improve the adaptation strategies through crop-climate modelling for the farmers and stakeholders. Hence, effective adaptation strategies need to be evaluated on a local basis first than on a regional basis to reduce the impact of climate change. Thus, modelling of adaptation strategies will be locally relevant for a longer term to be resilient to future climate change.

Sowing date as adaptation Strategy

Recent study evaluated shifting sowing dates as adaptation strategy for maize crop in Eastern India. For that Four RCP's (2.6, 4.5, 6.0 and 8.5) were used  for the year period 2021-50 and 2051-2081 of 17 GCMs. Methodology is presented below.

Below figure (a and b) shows the evaluation of sowing dates to simulated average grain yield for all the sites with current climate (baseline) under rainfed and irrigated seasons using violin plot for all scenarios. Moreover, the coefficients of variables were estimated to analyze the performance of the sowing dates under rainfed and irrigated seasons.

Figure also shows that early sowing dates 25 Dec and 5 Jan are suitable for all the RCP scenarios of CMIP5 climate projections and gave higher yield under both time periods. Whilst, the late sowing dates (25 Jan and 5 Feb) were unsuitable due to high uncertainty, low grain yield than the baseline, and earlier sowing dates for both the time periods. The sowing date (15 Jan) gave a notable estimated yield but the yield deviation was high for both time slice 2050s and 2080s in all the RCP scenarios.

How shifting sowig dates affects

Thus, the early sowing dates faced a dry spell while the late sowing dates faced high rainfall, thereby indicating crop failure in both cases. The shifting sowing dates can alter the grain filling period which is beneficial for the accumulation of dry matter in the grain. In addition, the distribution of rainfall within the crop growing period can alter the effects of the temperature. Moreover, increasing CO2 can harm crop yield if the maximum photosynthesis rate is exceeded.

Above figure indicates that the earlier sowing date 30 May and late sowing date 30 June under rainfed condition, while earlier sowing dates 25 December under irrigated condition showed less reduction in grain yield in both historic and future periods. Moreover, shifting sowing dates had a larger influence in the future periods than the historic period for the Purlia and Birbhum districts, while West Medinipur and Bankura districts, earlier sowing dates showed less reduction in grain yield in comparison to the delayed sowing dates under irrigated condition. Furthermore, late sowing date 30 June had a larger influence in future periods than the historic one, while in West Medinipur district, earlier sowing dates are more influential under rainfed conditions. Thus, under the rainfed condition, the earlier sowing dates (30 May and 30 June) show a reduction effect in the grain yield in future periods in all the RCPs for all districts except the West Medinipur. 

However, delaying the sowing period until 10 July had a negative effect for the West Medinipur and Bankura districts specifically. Under irrigated condition particularly, with the late sowing dates a consistent grain yield reduction was observed across all the districts in all scenarios and time periods. Also, all the sowing dates showed a reduction in yield with increasing RCP especially for RCP 8.5, and the time period 2080s had more impact on the grain yield than 2050s in comparison to the historic period. 

Is it beneficial as a management ?

• Well, first of all, well calibrated model needed because of reliability and for that strong data required. 
• The sowing date (5 Jan) was suitable for the time slice 2021–50 in all the RCP scenario, while earlier sowing date (25 Dec) was found to be suitable in the time slice period of 2051–80 with RCPs 8.5 for the irrigated season. 
• The sowing dates, 10 and 20 Jun were effective in RCPs 2.6, and 4.5 for the time slice 2051–2080 under rainfed season. 
• Effectiveness of late sowing dates was higher in RCPs 6.0, and 8.5 for both the time periods under rainfed season. 
• The changing sowing dates can reduce the effect of temperature on sensitive crop growth stage in irrigated season, while it can help to meet the precipitation on the sensitive crop growth stages. 
• Henceforth, the shifting of sowing dates can be adopted effectively and economically with less imports to reduce the detrimental climate change impact.

References:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959652622002402?via%3Dihub

https://sites.google.com/view/rk-srivastava/home

Climate Change: questions and answers part 1

Dear Friends, 

Climate change is now occurring all over world in a different way. Some countries are facing as extreme events such as extreme temperature, high intensity of rainfall and changed rainfall pattern. Some countries are also facing see level rises, high frequency of flood, melting ices and breaking icebergs, high frequency of wild fires due to rising temperature and these events are abruptly increasing and observed. Recently,  one report has been published in dw news "how melting icebergs in all over world" and weather warning in Europe has been increase as Europe now facing unusual stroms. Moreover, one report was published about drying Rhine river due to climate change and there are several incidents in India. However, Climate change is not a new topic. It was happening in historic time and several civilization was over due to extreme events.

Climate change

Further, climate change is long term process and it can not be over in one day. That can stop by spreading awareness about environment and how climate change is happening. There are several programs and research already ongoing funded by several agencies such as FAO, WHO, UNFCC, IPCC and local governments. Some time they also release some regulation regarding the climate change extreme and warnings.

Here, I am presenting some questions and answers which i submitted during one training course " Building resilience to climate change courses I and II" by united nation university Japan at IIT Kharagpur in year 2015. Hopefully, it will to help to under stand climate change. If any you have any question, Please let me know in comment section. Feel free for comments and suggestion.

NOAA logo

• Atmosphere has been mostly directly affected by human activities.Atmosphere contain the green house gases and these gases directly affect the atmosphere.

• There is rapid increase in the production of green house gases with increase in the no. of industries and also by methane gas in the atmosphere.

• Increase in radiative forcing from human activity is attributable mainly to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. CO2 is produced by fossil fuel burning and other activities such as cement production and tropical deforestation.

• The atmosphere contains several trace gases which absorb and emit infrared radiation. These so-called greenhouse gases absorb infrared radiation, emitted by the Earth’s surface.

• The action of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in trapping infrared radiation is called the greenhouse effect.

• Human activity since the Industrial Revolution has increased the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, leading to increased radiative forcing from CO2, methane, tropospheric ozone, CFCs and nitrous oxide.

Question and answer:

Q: Identify the 6 main components of the biophysical Earth system. Which one do you think has the most important role in determining global climate? Which of these are likely to have been most directly affected by human activities during the last thousand years?

Ans: The 6 main components of the biophysical Earth system is:

1. Lithosphere

2. Hydrosphere

3. Cryosphere

4. Atmosphere

5. Troposphere

6. Stratosphere

Since atmosphere contains the green house gases and is characterized by temperature, wind, precipitation, clouds and other weather elements, so atmosphere has the most important role in determining global climate.