Crop Quality (CQ) is an international, peer-reviewed, open-access journal dedicated to advancing the scientific understanding of crop quality as a primary outcome. In an era of climate change and rising global demand for nutritious food, the journal addresses the critical challenge of enhancing quality without compromising productivity or sustainability.
Aims and Scope
1. Nutritional Enhancement and Functional Components
Focuses on the genetic and physiological pathways used to bolster essential nutrients, including proteins, lipids, vitamins, and micronutrients (biofortification). We emphasize research on optimizing bioactive compounds (e.g. antioxidants, polyphenols) to address "hidden hunger" and satisfy the global shift toward functional, health-promoting diets.
2. Synergistic Mechanisms of Yield and Quality
Bridging the historical gap between high productivity and superior quality. This section prioritizes research on gene regulatory networks (GRNs), metabolic signaling, and the use of molecular markers or gene editing techniques to decouple the negative correlation between biomass yield and nutritional density.
3. Climate Resilience and Adaptive Quality Responses
Investigating how anthropogenic climate change—specifically elevated CO2, rising temperatures, and water scarcity—alters crop biochemistry. We seek research on the physiological mechanisms of quality degradation and the development of climate-resilient germplasm that maintains nutritional integrity under environmental stress.
4. Digital Phenotyping and Precision Quality Management
Explores the integration of Industry 4.0 technologies in agriculture. Key areas include the use of hyperspectral imaging, remote sensing, and AI-driven predictive models for non-destructive quality assessment, real-time nutrient monitoring, and precision harvest decision-making.
5. Advanced Breeding and Genomic Selection
Harnessing "Omics" technologies (genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics) to accelerate the development of next-generation cultivars. This includes de novo domestication, genomic selection for complex quality traits, and the development of cultivars with enhanced shelf-life and sensory profiles.
6. Post-Harvest Physiology and Processing Quality
Addresses the maintenance of quality from farm to fork. This includes research on metabolic changes during storage, the molecular basis of fruit ripening, and the suitability of new cultivars for industrial food processing and "clean label" ingredient manufacturing.
Ownership
The journal is owned by OAE Publishing Inc.
Publishing Model
Gold Open Access. All articles published by Crop Quality are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately from the date of publication. For further information, please refer to Open Access.
Copyright and License to Publish
Articles in Crop Quality are published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). The CC BY 4.0 allows for maximum dissemination and re-use of open access materials and is preferred by many research funding bodies. Under this license users are free to share (copy, distribute and transmit) and remix (adapt) the contribution for any purposes, even commercially, provided that the users appropriately acknowledge the original authors and the source.
Copyright is retained by authors. Authors are required to sign a License to Publish (which can be downloaded from the journal's Author Instructions), granting Crop Quality, which identifies itself as the original publisher, exclusive rights to publish their articles, and granting any third party the right to use the articles freely as long as the integrity is maintained and the original authors, citation details and publisher are identified.
Editorial Board
For more information about the editorial team, please refer to Editorial Board.
Editorial Policies
All manuscripts submitted to Crop Quality should adhere to journal's Editorial Policies.
Peer Review
The journal adheres to rigorous peer review and undergoes single-blind peer review. For more details, please refer to Editorial Process and Peer Review Guidelines.
Publication Ethics Statement
Crop Quality fully adheres to the Code of Conduct and the Best Practice Guidelines of Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
The Editors of this journal enforce a rigorous peer-review process together with strict ethical policies and standards to guarantee to add high quality scientific works to the field of scholarly publication. Unfortunately, cases of plagiarism, data falsification, image manipulation, inappropriate authorship credit, and the like, do arise. The Editors of Crop Quality take such publishing ethics issues very seriously and are trained to proceed in such cases with a zero tolerance policy. To verify the originality of content submitted to our journals, we use CrossCheck (powered by iThenticate) to check submissions against previous publications.
Journal Information and Statistics
- Publication model: Gold Open Access
- Frequency: Quarterly
- DOI: xxxxxx/Crop Quality
- Digital archive: Portico
Contact
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