Author Guidelines

Guidelines to authors

The scope of the Journal

The Journal accepts manuscripts in the area of agriculture, livestock, forestry and natural resources from the Eastern and Central Africa Countries. Manuscripts submitted for publication must be original reports of research not simultaneously submitted to or previously published in any other scientific or technical journal and must make a significant contribution to the advancement of scientific knowledge. Short articles which do not qualify for publication as scientific papers but can make a significant contribution to the advancement of scientific knowledge can be accepted for publication as Journal Briefs. Critical review and interpretation papers are also accepted for publication subject to the normal review process. Manuscripts resulting from symposia/conferences having appropriate subject matter are also considered for publication as a compilation in a single special issue of the Journal. Symposia/Conferences organisers desiring to publish a compilation of manuscripts in the Journal should contact the Editor-in-Chief with an outline of the overall purpose of the symposium and reasons justifying why the manuscripts should be published as a special issue of the Journal. If the request is accepted, then the Symposia/Conferences organisers would be required to instruct the authors to prepare their manuscripts in the Journal's format.

Manuscripts text

Manuscripts submitted to the Journal should be Word-processed on one side of A4 paper, double spaced with one inch margins round the text. The recommended font is Times New Roman size 12. All accepted manuscript files are edited in Microsoft Word. Authors should, therefore, compose their manuscripts in MS Word. Authors should avoid using word processing features such as automated bulleting and numbering, head and subhead formatting or internal linking. The typical sequence for a manuscript is title, abstract, introduction (without any heading), materials and methods, results, discussion, conclusions, acknowledgements, references. However, some manuscripts may have a theory section, a few may have no materials and methods, or the results and discussion section may be combined. If an appendix is needed, it should come before the references. The Journal uses a double-blind review in which the reviewers do not know the author names and the authors do not know the reviewer names. Because of this, authors should prepare the manuscript with no author by-line information such as names, addresses, affiliations, acknowledgments, etc. These should be submitted on a separate page to be added after the manuscript has been accepted. Tables and figures should be labelled with reference to the manuscript's title and not the author names. Any identification in headers or footers should be similarly anonymous.

Style

Authors should ensure that all abbreviations at first mention in the abstract or text and again in the tables and figures are defined. Once an abbreviation is used, it should be used throughout the entire manuscript except at the beginning of sentences. The scientific names of genera, species and varieties should be in italics while the authority is in roman type. For example: Spodoptera exempta Walk. The Latin binomial or trinomial and authority must be shown for all plants, insects, pathogens and animals at first listing. For example:

"The test crop for this study was maize (Zea mays L.)". Both the common and chemical name of pesticides should be given when first mentioned. For example: "Atrazine (2-chloro-4-ethylamino-6- isopropylamino-1,3,5-triazine) was most persistent". All soils should be identified at the series and family level or at least the Great Group at first mention. In all manuscripts, SI units should be used. If non SI units are used then metric equivalents should be given at least once in parentheses. Numbers one through nine should be spell out except when used with units. For decimal quantities less than one, a zero should be placed before the decimal point. The 24-h time system should be used with four digits for hours and minutes. For example: 1430 h for 2:30 pm and 0930 h for 9:30 am. Dates should be reported with the day first followed by the month and the year last. All months with more than four letters should be abbreviated. For

example: 14 May, 2006 and 26 Sept., 2006.

Title and abstract

All manuscripts should have a good title that appropriately identifies and represents the subject and purpose of the study or the major findings. A catchy title should be short, descriptive, specific and should enable the readers to understand what the study was all about. In choosing the title, the authors should use common names and avoid abbreviations. The recommended length of the title is about 12 words. Each manuscript must have a short factual abstract placed at the beginning of the manuscript. The abstract should state clearly the rationale, objectives, methods, results and their meaning or scope of application. The abstract should be complete in itself so as to enable the reader to judge the value of the article and whether or not to read it completely. It should also provide the literature searcher with enough information to assess its value and to index it for later retrieval. The abstract paragraph should not exceed 250 words for full articles and about 130-150 words or less for short articles. The number of words limitation is necessary because abstracts are often republished as printed in secondary abstracting services with similar word limits. Do not cite figures, tables, or references in the abstract.

Statistical methods and validation of field results

The manuscripts should report enough details of the experimental design so that the results can be judged for validity and so that previous experiments may serve as a basis for the design of future experiments. Means separation procedures are frequently misused. Such misuse may result in incorrect scientific conclusions. Pair wise multiple comparison tests (LSD) should be used only when the treatments structure is not well understood (e.g., studies to compare cultivars). Authors should be aware of the limitations of multiple comparison tests when little information exists on the structure of the treatments. When treatments have a logical structure, orthogonal contrasts among treatments should be used. Field experiments that are sensitive to environmental interactions and in which the crop environment is not rigidly controlled or monitored, such as studies on crop yield and yield components, should be repeated over time or space, or both to demonstrate that similar results can or cannot be obtained in another environmental regime.

Tables

All tables should be reduced to the simplest form and submitted on separate pages, numbered in Roman numerals and titled at the top in lower case. The desired position of each table should be clearly marked in the text. The authors are advised to use Microsoft Word table feature to prepare the tables with defined cells. Do not create tables by using the space bar and/or tab keys. Do not use the enter key within the body of the table. Instead, separate data horizontally with a new row. Do not insert blank columns or rows in the table to create extra spacing between columns and rows. The symbols *, ** and *** are always used to show 0.05, 0.01 and 0.001 probability levels respectively and should not used for any other purpose. Spell out abbreviations on first mention in tables even if they have already been defined in the text. The reader should be able to understand the table content without referring back to the text. Bold type, italic type or underlining can be used to highlight individual values in the table but shading is not allowed. In the body of a table, only the first letter of the first word in a row should be capitalised except for proper nouns.

Figures/illustrations

Line drawings and graphs submitted with the manuscript must be complete inclusive of all letters and numerals in the figures themselves and in a form suitable for reproduction. They should be drawn to a scale that will permit their reduction preferably by half or one third to an area not exceeding 18 x 13 cm inclusive of legend. Keep relative sizes in mind when adding symbols, letters and numbers to the figures. You can test the reduction quality on a copier. All figures should be numbered in Arabic numerals and their desired position in the text indicated. Legends to illustration must be typed in a separate sheet and not attached to the figures nor incorporated in the text. Figures in accepted manuscripts are prepared for publication by scanning printed copies of the figures. To maintain clear contrast, use line patterns instead of shading and avoid thin, light lines. Although authors will be asked to submit an electronic file for the review process, they should prepare all figures keeping in mind that high quality printed copies will ultimately be required if the manuscript is accepted. Only two photographs for reproduction as plates are allowed per manuscript. An additional plates shall be paid for by the author. Authors should supply un-mounted glossy prints with good contrast, numbered and marked lightly on the back with the title of the manuscript but not the author's name to preserve anonymity. The orientation of the picture should be indicated clearly if there could be any doubt at all as to which way is up. The authors should indicate in their covering letter the number of illustrations, figures etc enclosed. The Journal has not facility for colour photographs.

References

The reference section is typically limited to published literature and unpublished but available reports, abstracts, theses and dissertations. Authors should cite all references in the text by name and year. For example (Brown, 1963) or (Kilewe and Mbuvi, 1988) or Brown (1963) or Kilewe and Mbuvi (1988) found that... References with more than two authors should be cited in the text as follows - (Kilewe et a1., 1989) or Kilewe et al. (1989) found that... Only those references cited in the text should be included under the references in alphabetical order. The references should be compiled in the alphabetical list starting with the surname of the first author followed by the second and third authors The title of the journal should be abbreviated as in the 4th edition of The World List of Scientific Periodicals. For journal articles - give the authors, year, complete article title, abbreviated journal title, volume number and inclusive pages. For books - give the authors, year, complete book title, publisher and place of publication. For book chapters - give the authors, year, chapter title, pages, book editors), complete book title, publisher and place of publication. For proceedings - give the authors, year, article title, proceedings editors), title of the proceedings, the place and date of the conference, publisher and place of publication and number of pages.

Proceedings

[1] Esilaba, A.O., Reda, F., Ransom, J.K., Wondimu Bayu, Gebremehdin Woldewahid and Beyenesh Zemichael. (1999). The potential for relay cropping and improved fallows for soil fertility improvement and Striga control in northern Ethiopia. Proceedings of the Seventeenth Soil Science Society of East Africa Conference, 6-10 September 1999, Kampala, Uganda. pp 54-62.

Journal articles

[2] Smith, D.T., Johnson, D.L. and Thomas, J.K. (2001). Phosphorus losses in irrigation runoff. J. Environ. Qual.30, 256-258.

Book

[3] Lindsay, W.L. (1979). Chemical equilibria in soils. John Wiley & Sons,

New York.

Chapter in a book

[4] Nelson, D.W. and Sommers, L.E. (1982). Total carbon, organic carbon, and organic matter. P. 539-579. In: Methods of soil analysis (Page, A.L., Miller, R.H. and Keeney , D.R. ed.). Part 2. 2nd ed. Agron. Monogr. 9. ASA and SSSA, Madison, WI.

Chapter in proceedings

[5] Power, F.F. and Biederbeck, V.O. (1991). Role of cover crops in integrated crop production systems. In: Cover crops for clean water. Proc. Int. Conf., Jackson (Hargrove, W.L. ed), TN. 9-11 Apr. 1991. Soil and Water Conserv. Soc., Ankeny, IA. P. 167-174.

Submitting manuscripts

In addition to this the authors can also submit the manuscript electronically vide the following Email: Jack.Ouda@kalro.org. The printed copy and a MS Word processing file submitted must match exactly in all parts of the printed copy. The cover page that includes the title, acknowledgements, contributing institutions, brief statement of financial support and by-line such as names of all authors with their complete current addresses) should be separate from the manuscript. In case of electronic submission, the cover page should be send as a separate attachment.

The corresponding author, who should be identified with an asterisk in the by-line, is the one who shall work with the editors during review and production of the article. The manuscripts submitted to the Journal shall not necessarily be published in order of their receipt. Those that require little editing are likely to appear earlier. All enquiries regarding the progress on the manuscripts should be addressed to the Editor-in-Chief.

Reprints

First authors receive 25 reprints of their papers free of charge and may purchase additional the copies if ordered and paid for before publication. The order form is available from the Editor-in-Chief on request.