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Submission guidelines

Contents

Instructions for Authors

1. Aims and Scope

Horticulture, Environment, and Biotechnology (HEB) is the official journal of the Korean Society for Horticultural Science (KSHS), was launched in 1965 as the "Journal of Korean Society for Horticultural Science".

HEB is an international journal, published in English, bimonthly on the last day of even number months, and indexed in Biosys Preview, SCIE, and CABI. Also, we strive to identify manuscripts that are going to receive high enough priority based on the scientific novelty and impact needed to publish in HEB.

The journal is devoted for the publication of original research papers and review articles related to vegetables, fruits, ornamental and herbal plants, and covers all aspects of physiology, molecular biology, biotechnology, protected cultivation, postharvest technology, and research in plants related to environment.

2. Publication Policy Overview

2.1 Publication Fee

Traditional publication:

The author(s) must pay a publication fee $500 (U.S. Dollars) or KRW 500,000 per article. The charge is for the HEB’s sponsoring scientific societies (KSHS) providing editorial process. Quotations will be sent with a decision of acceptance. Unpaid articles will not be published on the Online First site of HEB.

Open Access (OA) publication:

The above publication fee, $500, will be waived, but the Article Processing Charge (APC), £2190.00/$3090.00/€2490.00, should be paid to the publisher. And you can find more details at Horticulture, Environment, and Biotechnology | How to publish with us (springer.com).

Please contact journal@horticulture.or.kr with any questions or concerns.

2.2 Publication Polices

1) Manuscript Submission

Manuscripts should be submitted online through our website (http://www.editorialmanager.com/heab/) and should be submitted by the corresponding author along with a cover letter declaring the “The authors have no conflicting interests, and all authors have approved the manuscript and agree with its submission to the journal Horticulture, Environment, and Biotechnology (HEB)”. The manuscript should be prepared strictly according to the HEB format as provided in the ‘Instructions to Authors’. Membership in the society is not a requirement for publication, but authors are urged to consider becoming a member.

HEB accepts manuscripts which were deposited on non-commercial pre-print servers like bioRxiv.

In general, review articles are invited by the Editors. Potential authors may either contact the Editor before submission or directly submit through editorial managing system.

The general instructions for authors should be used for all technical aspects of manuscript preparation.

For editors and reviewers to accurately assess the work presented in your manuscript you need to ensure the English language is of sufficient quality to be understood. If authors are non-native speakers of English, the manuscript must be edited by a native English speaker prior to submission, preferably one with a specialized knowledge of editing for plant science. The editor of HEB would request the certificate of English editing signed by a specializing native English speaker with the decision of “revise without review” after submission.

2) Permission

Authors wishing to include figures, tables, or text passages that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format and to include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors.

3) Online Submission

Please follow the hyperlink “Submit online” on the right and upload all of your manuscript files following the instructions given on the screen. (http://www.editorialmanager.com/heab/)

2.3 Review Policy and Procedure

All manuscripts must be submitted in English. All submitted manuscripts are to be Cross-Checked to compare to previously published articles by iThenticate software to prevent possible plagiarism. Depending on the resulting similarity scores or conformation to the HEB scope and standards, the submitted manuscript can be rejected or returned to authors for corrections and resubmission. A manuscript number is assigned to each manuscript, which will be sent to the corresponding author. Always refer to the manuscript number in all correspondence thereafter.

Submitted manuscripts are reviewed by at least two invited reviewers. Reviewed manuscripts are sent back to the corresponding author along with comments from reviewers. Some revision is usually necessary after the reviews, and final acceptance generally depends on extent of revision. In submitting revised manuscripts, authors are requested to submit explanations on how the revisions were made and the reason why they do not agree with the reviewers for those points on which they have no revision. A manuscript is considered withdrawn, if the author has not responded in 3 months to a request for revision. The corresponding authors will be notified for acceptance.

HEB provides an additional step of English polishing to all accepted manuscripts before getting final acceptance by the Editor in Chief. English editors of HEB will provide English revisions free of charge so that the authors should upload the final revised version of the manuscript after correction.

1) Procedure after Acceptance

Upon acceptance of your article you will receive a link to the special Author Query Application at Springer’s web page where you can sign the Copyright Transfer Statement online and indicate whether you wish to order OpenChoice, offprints, or printing of figures in color. Once the Author Query Application has been completed, your article will be processed and you will receive the proofs.

2) Color Illustrations

Online publication of color illustrations is free of charge. For color in the print version, authors will be expected to make a contribution towards the extra costs.

3) Proof Reading

The purpose of the proof is to check for typesetting or conversion errors and the completeness and accuracy of the text, tables and figures. Substantial changes in content, e.g., new results, corrected values, title and authorship, are not allowed without the approval of Editor-in-Chief. After online publication, further changes can only be made in the form of an Erratum, which will be hyperlinked to the article.

4) Online First

The article will be published online after receipt of the corrected proofs. This is the official first publication citable with the DOI. After release of the printed version, the paper can also be cited by issue and page numbers.

2.4 Compliance with Ethical Standards

To ensure objectivity and transparency in research and to ensure that accepted principles of ethical and professional conduct have been followed, authors should include information regarding sources of funding, potential conflicts of interest (financial or non-financial), informed consent if the research involved human participants, and a statement on welfare of animals if the research involved animals.

Authors should include the following statements (if applicable) in a separate section entitled “Compliance with Ethical Standards” when submitting a paper:

  • Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest
  • Research involving Human Participants and/or Animals

  • Informed consent
  • If there are no ethical issues, the authors can declare that they have no conflict of interest

The corresponding author should be prepared to collect documentation of compliance with ethical standards and send if requested during peer review or after publication.

The Editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the above-mentioned guidelines. The author will be held responsible for false statements or failure to fulfill the above-mentioned guidelines.

1) Author Contributions

The HEB recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria:

  • Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
  • Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
  • Final approval of the version to be published; AND
  • Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

In addition to being accountable for the parts of the work he or she has done, an author should be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for specific other parts of the work. In addition, authors should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of their co-authors.

All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged. These authorship criteria are intended to reserve the status of authorship for those who deserve credit and can take responsibility for the work. The criteria are not intended for use as a means to disqualify colleagues from authorship who otherwise meet authorship criteria by denying them the opportunity to meet criterion #s 2 or 3. Therefore, all individuals who meet the first criterion should have the opportunity to participate in the review, drafting, and final approval of the manuscript.

2) Copyright

Submission of a manuscript implies that the work described has not been published before (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture, review, or thesis); that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere; that its publication has been approved by all co-authors, if any, as well as – tacitly or explicitly – by the responsible authorities at the institution where the work was carried out. The author warrants that his/her contribution is original and that he/she has full power to make this grant. The author signs for and accepts responsibility for releasing this material on behalf of any and all co-authors. Transfer of copyright to Korean Society for Horticultural Science (KSHS) becomes effective if and when the article is accepted for publication. After submission of the Copyright Transfer Statement signed by the corresponding author, changes of authorship or in the order of the authors listed will not be accepted by KSHS and Springer.

The copyright covers the exclusive right (for U.S. government employees: to the extent transferable) to reproduce and distribute the article, including reprints, translations, photographic reproductions, microform, electronic form (offline, online) or other reproductions of similar nature.

An author may self-archive an author-created version of his/her article on his/her own website. He/she may also deposit this version on his/her institution's and funder's (funder designated) repository at the funder’s request or as a result of a legal obligation, including his/her final version, provided it is not made publicly available until after 12 months of official publication. He/she may not use the publisher's PDF version which is posted on www.springerlink.com for the purpose of self-archiving or deposit. Furthermore, the author may only post his/her version provided acknowledgement is given to the original source of publication and a link is inserted to the published article on Springer's website. The link must be accompanied by the following text: "The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com.”

All articles published in this journal are protected by copyright, which covers the exclusive rights to reproduce and distribute the article (e.g., as offprints), as well as all translation rights. No material published in this journal may be reproduced photographically or stored on microfilm, in electronic data bases, video disks, etc., without first obtaining written permission from the publishers. The use of general descriptive names, trade names, trademarks, etc., in this publication, even if not specifically identified, does not imply that these names are not protected by the relevant laws and regulations.

While the advice and information in this journal is believed to be true and accurate at the date of its going to press, neither the authors, the editors, nor the publishers can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions that may be made. The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein.

3. Manuscript Organization

Manuscript should be arranged in the following order.

3.1 Research report

  • Abstract
  • Keywords
  • Introduction
  • Materials and methods
  • Results
  • Discussion (or Results and Discussion)
  • Conclusion (optional)
  • Supplementary data (optional)
  • Author contribution statement
  • Acknowledgements
  • Compliance with ethical standards (e.g. Conflict of interest)
  • Data availability (optional)
  • References
  • Tables, figure legends, and figures (Each table and figure should be presented on separate page)

3.2 Review

  • Title page
  • Abstract
  • Keywords
  • Introduction
  • Sub-title
  • Conclusion
  • Supplementary data (optional)
  • Author contribution statement
  • Acknowledgements
  • Compliance with ethical standards (e.g. Conflict of interest)
  • References
  • Tables, figure legends, and figures

4. Manuscript Preparation

4.1 Text formatting

  • Manuscripts including tables and figures, 1.5 spaced in a MS Word docx format (Word 2007 or higher) or doc format (older Word versions). Use a normal, plain font (e.g., 11-point Times New Roman) for text.
  • All pages must be numbered consecutively and all lines also must be numbered consecutively from the title page. Use a single column format in page layout.
  • Abbreviations should be defined at first mention and used consistently thereafter.
  • The journal requires the use of the metric system, preferentially SI units, and centered period between units (e.g. mg L-1).
  • All the manuscripts should be written in standard scientific English. Non-native English authors are highly recommended to use a scientific English editing service to improve the manuscript prior to submission to HEB.

4.2 Cover letter

Upload a cover letter as a separate file in the online system. The cover letter should include the following information;

  • The manuscript is original (i.e., you wrote it, not copied it).
  • Summarize the study’s contribution to the scientific literature.
  • Explains why the manuscript would be a good fit for the journal’s aims and scope.
  • No part of the manuscript has been published before, nor is any part of it under consideration for publication at another journal.
  • There are no conflicts of interest to disclose.
  • Describe any prior interactions with HEB regarding the submitted manuscript.

4.3 Title page

The title page should include the followings.

  • Article title. The title should be a concise and informative description of the contents of the paper. Avoid abbreviations in the title of the manuscript. Use common names for well-known species. Cultivar names can be used only for comparisons or when the characteristics of the cultivar need to be emphasized. Do not use an abbreviation except for common terminology. Serial titles indicating a series of related papers are not generally recommended, unless manuscripts are submitted together.
  • Authors and affiliations. The title, full name of each author and institution(s) where the research was done, with mailing address(es), should be included. If an author has since moved to a different institution, the new location can be indicated in a footnote. The corresponding author should be noted by an asterisk. For multiple affiliations, use respective superscript numbers to match authors and their affiliations.
  • Corresponding author. HEB accepts notice of equal contribution for the first or corresponding authors when the study was clearly performed by co-first or co-corresponding authors. Authors have to declare in their Main Text file. The title page should list the corresponding author’s telephone and fax numbers and email address.
  • Email addresses of all authors. The title page should list authors’ initial name and email addresses. HEB encourages the listing of authors’ Open Researcher and Contributor Identification (the 16-digit ORCID).

4.4 Abstract

The Abstract should be a concise summation of the objectives, materials used, major treatments, results and conclusions written in a paragraph. Abstract must not exceed 5% of the length of the paper (usually 150 to 250 words). Use a chemical name followed by a common name in parenthesis when first mentioned, and then use the common name thereafter. The Abstract should not contain any undefined abbreviations or unspecified references.

4.5 Keywords

Provide 5 to 6 key words, which are capitalized the first letter with an alphabetical order. Common species name(s), chemical name(s), physiological or pathological term(s), and genetic term(s) can be used.

4.6 Introduction

The introduction should provide the necessary background information for the average reader; it should be both complete and concise. Previous publications that form a basis for the work presented must be cited.

4.7 Materials and methods

In the Materials and Methods section, the experimental procedures should be described in sufficient detail that they could be followed by other researchers in the field. This section should be made as concise as possible by reference to procedures that have already been published, unless the method used here was greatly modified. Scientific names of species and cultivar names used must be included regardless of their appearance in Abstract or Introduction. Sizes, quantities, and suppliers of materials must be indicated, preferentially in common names. Treatments, experimental design, and statistical method must be explained in detail. Commonly known methods or analyses may be briefly explained by citing relevant references.

4.8 Results

The Results section contains the results of research given in detail, with tables and figures as needed. Results that can be expressed easily in the text should not be given in the form of tables or figures.

4.9 Discussion

The Discussion section should not contain a repeat of the results, but should explain the meaning of the findings and the authors' conclusions, together with a discussion of any contradiction of already published reports. The discussion section can be merged to the result section.

4.10 Conclusion (optional)

Link the conclusions with the goals of the study but avoid unqualified statements and conclusions not adequately supported by the data. Avoid claiming priority or alluding to work that has not been completed.

4.11 Supplementary data

Authors can submit essential supporting files and multimedia files along with their manuscripts. Supplementary data files are published exactly as provided for online-only publication. All supplementary data will be subject to review.

Authors may use almost any description as the item name for a supporting information file as long as it contains an “S” and number. For example, “Supplementary Table S1”, “Supplementary Fig. S1”, and so on. In on-line submission system, you would be required the file number and name with a caption. We recommend that you cite supporting information in the manuscript text.

The supplementary data section should immediately follow the discussion and you would indicate that supplementary data are available at HEB online.

4.12 Author contribution statement

  • Authors must provide a short description of the contributions made by each listed author (please use initials). This will be published in a separate section in front of the Acknowledgments.
  • We insist that no author be omitted.

Note by the editor: Please be aware that changes to the list of authors are not possible after final acceptance of the manuscript.

4.13 Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments of people, grants, funds, etc. should be placed in this section. The names of funding organizations should be written in full. Also, those who contributed to the work but do not meet our authorship criteria should be listed in this section with a description of the contribution.

4.14 Compliance with Ethical Standards

To ensure objectivity and transparency in research and to ensure that accepted principles of ethical and professional conduct have been followed, authors should include information regarding sources of funding, potential conflicts of interest (financial or non-financial), informed consent if the research involved human participants, and a statement on welfare of animals if the research involved animals.

Authors should include the following statements (if applicable) in a separate section entitled “Compliance with Ethical Standards” when submitting a paper:

  • Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest
  • Research involving Human Participants and/or Animals
  • Informed consent

Please note that standards could vary slightly per journal dependent on their review policies as well as per journal subject discipline. Before submitting your article check the instructions following this section carefully.

The corresponding author should be prepared to collect documentation of compliance with ethical standards and send if requested during review or after publication.

The Editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the above-mentioned guidelines. The author will be held responsible for false statements or failure to fulfill the above-mentioned guidelines.

1) Conflict of Interest

Authors must disclose all relationships or interests that could have direct or potential influence or impart bias on the work. Although an author may not feel there is any conflict, disclosure of relationships and interests provides a more complete and transparent process, leading to an accurate and objective assessment of the work. Awareness of a real or perceived conflicts of interest is a perspective to which the readers are entitled. This is not meant to imply that a financial relationship with an organization that sponsored the research or compensation received for consultancy work is inappropriate. Examples of potential conflicts of interests that are directly or indirectly related to the research may include but are not limited to the following:

  • Research grants from funding agencies (please give the research funder and the grant number)
  • Honoraria for speaking at symposia
  • Financial support for attending symposia
  • Financial support for educational programs
  • Employment or consultation
  • Support from a project sponsor
  • Position on advisory board or board of directors or other type of management relationships
  • Multiple affiliations
  • Financial relationships, for example equity ownership or investment interest
  • Intellectual property rights (e.g. patents, copyrights and royalties from such rights)
  • Holdings of spouse and/or children that may have financial interest in the work

In addition, interests that go beyond financial interests and compensation (non-financial interests) that may be important to readers should be disclosed. These may include but are not limited to personal relationships or competing interests directly or indirectly tied to this research, or professional interests or personal beliefs that may influence your research.

The corresponding author collects the conflict of interest disclosure forms from all authors. In author collaborations where formal agreements for representation allow it, it is sufficient for the corresponding author to sign the disclosure form on behalf of all authors. Examples of forms can be found here ( https://www.springer.com/gp/authors-editors/journal-author/journal-author-helpdesk/publishing-ethics/14214).

The corresponding author will include a summary statement in the text of the manuscript in a separate section before the reference list, that reflects what is recorded in the potential conflict of interest disclosure form(s).

See below examples of disclosures:

  • Funding: This study was funded by X (grant number X).
  • Conflict of Interest: Author A has received research grants from Company A. Author B has received a speaker honorarium from Company X and owns stock in Company Y. Author C is a member of committee Z.
  • If no conflict exists, the authors should state: Conflict of Interest: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

2) Research involving human participants and/or animals

a. A Statement of human rights

When reporting studies that involve human participants, authors should include a statement that the studies have been approved by the appropriate institutional and/or national research ethics committee and have been performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration or comparable standards, the authors must explain the reasons for their approach, and demonstrate that the independent ethics committee or institutional review board explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study.

If a study was granted exemption from requiring ethics approval, this should also be detailed in the manuscript (including the name of the ethics committee that granted the exemption and the reasons for the exemption).

Authors must - in all situations as described above - include the name of the ethics committee and the reference number where appropriate.

The following statements should be included in the text before the References section:

  • Ethical approval: “All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee (include name of committee + reference number) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.”
  • Ethical approval retrospective studies --- Although retrospective studies are conducted on already available data or biological material (for which formal consent may not be needed or is difficult to obtain) ethical approval may be required dependent on the law and the national ethical guidelines of a country. Authors should check with their institution to make sure they are complying with the specific requirements of their country.

b. Statement on the welfare of animals

The welfare of animals used for research must be respected. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals have been followed, and that the studies have been approved by a research ethics committee at the institution or practice at which the studies were conducted (where such a committee exists). Please provide the name of ethics committee and relevant permit number.

For studies with animals, the following statement should be included in the text before the References section:

  • Ethical approval: “All applicable international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed.”
  • If applicable (where such a committee exists): “All procedures performed in studies involving animals were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institution or practice at which the studies were conducted. (include name of committee + permit number)”

If articles do not contain studies with human participants or animals by any of the authors, please select one of the following statements:

  • “This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.”
  • “This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.”
  • “This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.”

3) Informed consent

All individuals have individual rights that are not to be infringed. Individual participants in studies have, for example, the right to decide what happens to the (identifiable) personal data gathered, to what they have said during a study or an interview, as well as to any photograph that was taken. Hence it is important that all participants gave their informed consent in writing prior to inclusion in the study. Identifying details (names, dates of birth, identity numbers and other information) of the participants that were studied should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and genetic profiles unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the participant (or parent or guardian if the participant is incapable) gave written informed consent for publication. Complete anonymity is difficult to achieve in some cases, and informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of participants is inadequate protection of anonymity. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic profiles, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning.

The following statement should be included:

  • Informed consent: “Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.”

If identifying information about participants is available in the article, the following statement should be included:

  • “Additional informed consent was obtained from all individual participants for whom identifying information is included in this article.”

4.15 Data availability

A submission to the journal implies that materials described in the manuscript, including all relevant raw data, will be freely available to any researcher wishing to use them for non-commercial purposes, without breaching participant confidentiality.

The journal strongly encourages that all datasets on which the conclusions of the paper rely should be available to readers. We encourage authors to ensure that their datasets are either deposited in publicly available repositories (where available and appropriate) or presented in the main manuscript or additional supporting files whenever possible.

The journal encourages authors to provide a statement of Data availability in their article. Data availability statements should include information on where data supporting the results reported in the article can be found, including, where applicable, hyperlinks to publicly archived datasets analysed or generated during the study. Data availability statements can also indicate whether data are available on request from the authors and where no data are available, if appropriate.

Data Availability statements can take one of the following forms (or a combination of more than one if required for multiple datasets):

1) The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available in the [NAME] repository, [PERSISTENT WEB LINK TO DATASETS]

2) The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available due [REASON WHY DATA ARE NOT PUBLIC] but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

3) The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

4) Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.

5) All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article [and its supplementary information files].

4.16 References

1) Citation

Cite references in the text by name and year in parentheses. Some examples:

  • Negotiation research spans many disciplines (Thompson 1990).
  • This result was later contradicted by Becker and Seligman (1996).
  • This effect has been widely studied (Abbott 1991; Barakat et al. 1995a, b;Kelso and Smith 1998; Medvec et al. 1999, 2000).

2) Reference list

The list of references should only include works that are cited in the text and that have been published or accepted for publication. Personal communications and unpublished works should only be mentioned in the text. Do not use footnotes or endnotes as a substitute for a reference list.

Reference list entries should be alphabetized by the last names of the first author of each work. Please alphabetize according to the following rules: (1) For one author, by name of author, then chronologically; (2) For two authors, by name of author, then name of coauthor, then chronologically; (3) For more than two authors, by name of first author, then chronologically.

a. Journal article

Gamelin FX, Baquet G, Berthoin S, Thevenet D, Nourry C, Nottin S, Bosquet L (2009) Effect of high intensity intermittent training on heart rate variability in prepubescent children. Eur J Appl Physiol 105:731-738. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-008-0955-8

Ideally, the names of all authors should be provided, but the usage of “et al.” in long author lists will also be accepted:

Smith J, Jones M Jr, Houghton L et al. (1999) Future of health insurance. N Engl J Med 965:325–329

b. Article by DOI

Slifka MK, Whitton JL (2000) Clinical implications of dysregulated cytokine production. J Mol Med. https://doi.org/10.1007/s001090000086

c. Book

South J, Blass B (2001) The future of modern genomics. Blackwell, London

d. Book chapter

Brown B, Aaron M (2001) The politics of nature. In: Smith J (ed) The rise of modern genomics, 3rd edn. Wiley, New York, pp 230-257

e. Online document

Cartwright J (2007) Big stars have weather too. IOP Publishing PhysicsWeb. http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/11/6/16/1. Accessed 26 June 2007

f. Dissertation

Trent JW (1975) Experimental acute renal failure. Dissertation, University of California

g. Always use the standard abbreviation of a journal’s name according to the ISSN List of Title Word Abbreviations, see http://www.issn.org/services/online-services/access-to-the-ltwa/. If you are unsure, please use the full journal title.

4.17 Tables

  • All tables are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.
  • Tables should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical order.
  • For each table, please supply a table caption (title) explaining the components of the table.
  • Identify any previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference at the end of the table caption.
  • Footnotes to tables should be indicated by superscript lower-case letters (or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data) and included beneath the table body.

5. Artwork and Illustrations Guidelines

5.1 Electronic figure submission

  • Supply all figures electronically.
  • Indicate what graphics program was used to create the artwork.
  • For vector graphics, the preferred format is EPS; for halftones, please use TIFF format. MS Office files are also acceptable.
  • Vector graphics containing fonts must have the fonts embedded in the files.
  • Name your figure files with Fig and the figure number, e.g., Fig1.eps.

5.2 Line art

  • Definition: Black and white graphic with no shading.
  • Do not use faint lines and/or lettering and check that all lines and lettering within the figures are legible at final size.
  • All lines should be at least 0.1 mm (0.3 pt) wide.
  • Scanned line drawings and line drawings in bitmap format should have a minimum resolution of 1200 dpi.
  • Vector graphics containing fonts must have the fonts embedded in the files.

5.3 Halftone art

  • Definition: Photographs, drawings, or paintings with fine shading, etc.
  • If any magnification is used in the photographs, indicate this by using scale bars within the figures themselves.
  • Halftones should have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi.

5.4 Combination art

  • Definition: a combination of halftone and line art, e.g., halftones containing line drawing, extensive lettering, color diagrams, etc.
  • Combination artwork should have a minimum resolution of 600 dpi.

5.5 Color art

  • Color art is free of charge for online publication.
  • If black and white will be shown in the print version, make sure that the main information will still be visible. Many colors are not distinguishable from one another when converted to black and white. A simple way to check this is to make a xerographic copy to see if the necessary distinctions between the different colors are still apparent.
  • If the figures will be printed in black and white, do not refer to color in the captions.
  • Color illustrations should be submitted as RGB (8 bits per channel).

5.6 Figure lettering

  • To add lettering, it is best to use Helvetica or Arial (sans serif fonts).
  • Keep lettering consistently sized throughout your final-sized artwork, usually about 2–3 mm (8–12 pt).
  • Variance of type size within an illustration should be minimal, e.g., do not use 8-pt type on an axis and 20-pt type for the axis label.
  • Avoid effects such as shading, outline letters, etc.
  • Do not include titles or captions into your illustrations.

5.7 Figure numbering

  • All figures are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.
  • Figures should always be cited in the text in consecutive numerical order.
  • Figure parts should be denoted by lowercase letters (a, b, c, etc.).
  • If an appendix appears in your article/chapter and it contains one or more figures, continue the consecutive numbering of the main text. Do not number the appendix figures, “A1, A2, A3, etc.” Figures in online appendices (Electronic supplementary Material) should, however, be numbered separately.

5.8 Figure caption

  • Each figure should have a concise caption describing accurately what the figure depicts. Include the captions in the text file of the manuscript, not in the figure file.
  • Figure captions begin with the term Fig. in bold type, followed by the figure number, also in bold type.
  • No punctuation is to be included after the number, nor is any punctuation to be placed at the end of the caption.
  • Identify all elements found in the figure in the figure caption; and use boxes, circles, etc., as coordinate points in graphs.
  • Identify previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference citation at the end of the figure caption.

5.9 Figure placement and size

  • Figures should be submitted within the body of the text. Only if the file size of the manuscript causes problems in uploading it, the large figures should be submitted separately from the text.
  • When preparing your figures, size figures to fit in the column width.
  • For most journals the figures should be 39 mm, 84 mm, 129 mm, or 174mm wide and not higher than 234 mm.
  • For books and book-sized journals, the figures should be 80 mm or 122mm wide and not higher than 198 mm.

5.10 Permission

If you include figures that have already been published elsewhere, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format. Please be aware that some publishers do not grant electronic rights for free and that Springer will not be able to refund any costs that may have occurred to receive these permissions. In such cases, material from other sources should be used.

5.11 Accessibility

In order to give people of all abilities and disabilities access to the content of your figures, please make sure that

  • All figures have descriptive captions (blind users could then use a text-to speech software or a text-to-Braille hardware)
  • Patterns are used instead or in addition to colors for conveying information (color-blind users would then be able to distinguish the visual elements)

Any figure lettering has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1.

(Last updated on 18 May 2021)

Open access publishing

To find out more about publishing your work Open Access in Horticulture, Environment, and Biotechnology, including information on fees, funding and licenses, visit our Open access publishing page.

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