How to submit

Authors should submit Reports to the Senior Editor, Robert Black in electronic format by email.

Email: ndr@bspp.org.uk

Expanded format

New Disease Reports now operates with an expanded format to include additional keywords, allowance for a longer manuscript (2800 characters max.), up to six references and one Table of relevant information. Authors are requested carefully to follow instructions on File Attachments below and the detailed instructions that follow.

File Attachments

Email messages submitting manuscripts to NDR with unnecessarily large file attachments pose a severe strain on NDR's email systems and add unnecessarily to the Senior Editor's workload.

The Manuscript file MUST be in PC (not Mac) format saved with <.doc>, <.docx> or <.rtf> extension.

Text figures MUST be submitted as JPEG (.jpg) files (see below) and each text figure must be sent as a separate file (Fig. 1, Fig. 2, Fig. 3, etc.). Other graphic files formats such as bitmaps, TIF, etc, are not acceptable. The following are also NOT acceptable:

  • manuscript text (.doc or .rtf) that includes embedded text figures (even if text figures sent separately)
  • any file in .pdf format
  • files with multiple text figures

ONE Table submitted as .doc, .docx or .rtf file is acceptable provided it contains relevant information such as list of crop varieties experimentally susceptible or incidence/severity data from several localities. However, editorial discretion will be used to decide on inclusion or omission of Tables.

Any submission including an unacceptable 'mail bomb' of this sort (such as Word documents of more than 100kB and forbidden graphic file formats) will be deleted without acknowledgement. Authors please also note that anti-virus systems may block zip files from some servers.

PLEASE NOTE: submission by post (either on diskette/CD or paper copies) will NOT be accepted.

Content

For details on what is and what is not acceptable for publication in NDR, please refer to 'Instructions for Authors'

Format

All submissions should accurately follow the guidelines given below under 'Structure and formatting instructions'. The Template included in these instructions should be used as an interim guide to format and style of the manuscript until a new Template for the expanded format is provided. All files should be saved in PC (not Mac) format, preferably as a Microsoft Word document (.doc) or as an RTF file (.rtf) or compatible files produced with Open-Office or WordPad.

Photographic images

A maximum of five images (which may be composites) will be uploaded to the New Disease Reports webpages. Images should be of good quality in .jpg format and supplied to the Senior Editor as separate files to the text. Poor quality images will be rejected but files of excessive size for subject matter that does not need high resolution (e.g. field shots of disease) should be avoided. Hard copy photographs cannot be accepted.

Action following initial submission

Acknowledgement of submission to New Disease Reports will be sent to authors within five days of receipt.

Following submission, the Senior Editor will review the report for its overall acceptability in terms of content, format and significance. After this initial review papers will be rejected outright as unacceptable, returned with comments for resubmission or passed onto an editor for a more detailed review.

In the case of the latter situation, once a report has been assigned to an editor, they are responsible for checking the authenticity of the report and its overall scientific content. It is the editor’s responsibility to decide whether to reject a report or recommend it for publication.

Editors are at liberty to consult additional reviewers where deemed necessary.

The entire review and editing process is handled electronically between the assigned Editor and the author, with the editor corresponding with the authors directly.

An author receiving reviews and editorial recommendations for revision of a manuscript has two months to complete the revision and return the manuscript to the Editor.

Once the final version of the Report is complete, this will be emailed by the Editor to the Senior Editor, who will carry out a final review and copy editing. The accepted Report will then be sent to the corresponding author for proof-reading, approval of the text and their agreement with the copyright declaration, after which the report will be published online.

Publication

The completed Report will be forwarded by the Senior Editor to the BSPP Webmanager, for publication on the New Disease Reports WebPages on the BSPP Website. A Digital Object Identifier (DOI) will be issued for each published Report. (The DOI may be issued retrospectively during the first few months of the operation of this system.)

The date of posting on the BSPP Website will be the official publication date which will be shown together with the date of submission.

Special Notice: From 1st January 2010, New Disease Reports will be published as a peer-reviewed stand-alone on-line journal with the objective of providing rapid publication of new and unusual reports on plant diseases. Reports submitted after 31 December 2009, and accepted for publication in NDR, are no longer published in Plant Pathology.

Disclaimer

All papers published on the BSPP Web New Disease Reports page and biannually within the BSPP journal Plant Pathology reflect the views of the authors and are not necessarily the views of BSPP or the institutions with which the editors and authors are affiliated. The editors reserve the right to reject or accept papers for publication and to edit them for clarity and conciseness.

Structure and format

Please download and use the example template for all submitted New Disease Reports to ensure correct formatting (authors should use this new Template even if they have previously submitted Reports to NDR). Use the default document font, do not use styles, and only the minimum of additional essential formatting (e.g. italics for Latin names). In MS-Word or Open-Office make sure your document language is specified as English(UK). If using quotes use only ' or ", do not use sloping quotes, for special characters e.g. µ and ° [use the degree symbol, not superscript o] and for accented characters (only in names) please ensure these are created using ASCII or ISO-8859-1 (latin) character encoding.

word document  NDR Template rich text format (.rtf) 5 kb

The title of the report should include the disease, pathogen (scientific name where known), host (common name if well known, otherwise scientific name) and the location of the record(s). Do not include authorities for scientific names.

The author line should have initials before surnames, followed by institution(s). The email address of the corresponding author name should be given before the main text and indicated using an asterisk (*).

The text should state observations, including general methods and measurements, but omitting illustrations, and footnotes.

One Table of relevant data may be attached as a separate file (see above).

For units or quantities SI units are preferred. Numbers preceding units should be written as numerals; those preceding other items up to nine should be spelt out; e.g. 8 cm, two days, nine fields, 10 leaves. Units should preferably be explicit, e.g. 1 g/l rather than 0.1% w/v.

The scientific name of the host should be included if it is not used in the title. Authorities should not be included but authors should endeavour to use currently accepted scientific names (e.g. Solanum lycopersicum instead of Lycopersicon esculentum).

Please provide completed proof of pathogenicity and identify the causal agent to species where possible for reports of new hosts or new diseases caused by plant pathogens, including previously known diseases, new to a country or region. Authors are encouraged to deposit specimens and cultures in a recognised repository and to report the place of deposit. A brief interpretation or statement of the implications of the Report is permissible. The significance of the Report should be clearly stated within the text.

Where DNA sequences are used to support identification of a pathogen, these sequences must be deposited in a public sequence database and the accession number(s) quoted in the paper. Approved papers will not be published until deposited sequences are publicly available.

New Disease Reports should not exceed 2800 characters (approximately 525 words), excluding title, authors, and references. Authors should verify the length of the Report before submission.

Acknowledgments can be included but should be restricted to less than 120 characters

References

Reports shall have no more than six references which should be listed alphabetically. Within the references for a particular author, those with the author alone should precede those with two authors and these should precede lists with more than two. Within each of these groups the references should be listed chronologically. The exact style of presenting references is the same as that used in Plant Pathology (available at the Wiley-Blackwell website for Plant Pathology. All journal titles should be written out in full. Examples are given below.

Wherever available authors should provide DOIs for any references that are available on line

Journals:

  • Standard journal article
    Jones CS, 1980. A forecasting system for leaf blight of tomato. Phytopathologische Zeitschrift 49, 460-69.
  • No author given
    Anonymous, 1947. The measurement of potato blight. Transactions of the British Mycological Society 31, 140-41.
  • Journal supplement
    Grylls NE, Waterford CJ, 1976. Transmission of the causal agent of chloris striate mosaic disease by insect injection and membrane feeding. Australian Plant Pathological Society Newsletter 5(Suppl. 1), 89.
  • On-line journal
    Gibbs MJ, Ziegler A, Robinson DJ, Waterhouse PM, Cooper JI, 1996. Carrot mottle mimic virus (CMoMV): a second umbravirus associated with carrot motley dwarf disease recognized by nucleic acid hybridization. Molecular Plant Pathology On-line [http://www.bspp.org.uk/mppol/] 1996/1111gibbs.

Books and other monographs:

  • Personal author(s)
    Sutton BC, 1980. The Coelomycetes. Kew: Commonwealth Mycological Institute.
  • Editor, compiler, chairman as author
    Palti J, Kranz J, eds, 1980. Comparative Epidemiology. A Tool for Better Disease Management. Wageningen, the Netherlands: Centre for Agricultural Publishing and Documentation.
  • Chapter in a book
    Jones CS, Smith N, Brown RS, 1979. Biology of diseases caused by Botrytis spp. In: Smith N, Brown RS, eds. Diseases of Vegetables. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Scientific Publications, 40-49.
  • Published proceedings paper
    McIntosh Review Article, 1992. Catalogue of gene symbols for wheat. In: Miller TE, Koebner RM, eds. Proceedings of the Seventh International Wheat Genetics Symposium, 1987. Cambridge, UK: IPSR, 1225-323.
  • Monograph in a series
    Allen PJ, 1976. Control of spore germination and infection structure formation in the fungi. In: Heitefuss R, Williams PH, eds. Physiological Plant Pathology. Berlin, Germany: Springer-Verlag, 51-78. (Pirson A, Zimmermann MH, eds. Encyclopedia of Plant Physiology New Series; vol. 4.)
  • Agency publication
    Harvey JM, Pentzer WT, 1960. Market Diseases of Grapes and Other Small Fruits. Washington, USA: United States Department of Agriculture: USDA publication no. 189. (Agriculture Handbook Series.)
  • Dissertation or thesis
    Lenné JM, 1978. Studies of the Biology and Taxonomy of Colletotrichum Species. Melbourne, Australia: University of Melbourne, PhD thesis.

Citing New Disease Reports:

For Reports already published in Plant Pathology:
Min H, Li ZN, Wu YF, Hu SB, Zhang CP, Wu KK, 2009. Phytoplasma associated with a witches'-broom disease of Gleditsia sinensis (Fabaceae) newly reported in China. Plant Pathology 58, 790. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-3059.2009.02052.x

For Reports awaiting publication in Plant Pathology (2009 submission):
M. E. Göre ME, S. Parlak S, M.H. Aydın MH, 2010. Pestalotiopsis guepinii newly reported to cause dieback on Pistacia lentiscus var. chia in Turkey. New Disease Reports [http://ndrs.org.uk] Volume 21.

For Reports published online only:
Malandraki I, Papachristopoulou M, Vassilakos N, 2010. First report of Potato spindle tuber viroid (PSTVd) in ornamental plants in Greece. New Disease Reports [http://ndrs.org.uk] Volume 21. [Include DOI if available]