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Business Meeting Minutes
Division A-3, Agroclimatology and Agronomic Modeling
Agronomy Society of America
Tuesday, 6 November 2007, New Orleans, Louisiana
The meeting was called to order at 4:00 pm by Division Chair Steve Evett. He introduced
the officers as
Steve, Evett, Chair
Jeff Baker, Past Chair
John Angus, Chair-elect
Dennis Timlin, incoming Chair-elect
Jim Kiniry Board representative
BUSINESS
Minutes of the 2006 meeting were distributed by Steve Evett, read and unanimously
approved upon a motion by Judy Tolk and Louis Baumhardt.
A-3 Representative board
A-3 Board rep Jim Kiniry discussed ACSESS, a management entity for the tri-societies.
The decision to form this entity was decided by a vote from society members. Fees
charged to each society to support ACSESS will be based on direct expenses plus a
management fee of $25,000 per society per year. The overall operation of the ACSESS
should be under the radar. Jerry Hatfield will be chair.
The Societies recently invested $1.2 million into IT infrastructure to support the societies.
This should result in improved management efficiency and member services. The costs
will be depreciated over the next three years resulting in a marked increase in indirect
costs.
As the evolution to a tri-society progresses, the board rep responsibilities are changing
where they will have a more active role in all decisions. So there is a different role for
board reps now. The transformation of the American Society of Agronomy into three
independent societies was fully implemented this year as the economic and management
components were put into effect (via ACSESS). The vision for the tri-societies is for it to
become a consortium of societies that deal with issues of science and agriculture. This
means that there will be other groups invited to join. At this time, the members are the
ASA, SSSA, and CSSSA. Jim referred Div-A-03 members to Ken Moore’s article ‘A
House Divided’ and Lowell Moser’s article ‘History of the ASA Divisions’ in the
November 2007 CSA news for interesting discussions on the evolution of the societies
over time.
Table 1, printed in Ken Moore’s article in the November, 2007 CSA News lists the
number of ASA members in each division as their first choice. The numbers are ranked
among all the divisions of the Tri-Societies (total 28). Of these 28, A-03 ranked 13.
Within the ASA, Div A-03 ranked third, behind A-05 (Environmental Quality) and A-08
(Integrated Agricultural Systems).
The number of members for ASA has been stable at about 8000 since 2004. It had
declined from a maximum of about 10,500 members in 2002. Jim noted that the relative
number of younger members has been increasing. He suggested that this demonstrates
the success of recent recruitment efforts.
Division A-3 Technical Editor Report
Technical editor Bill Payne reported that the overall number of papers submitted to the
Agronomy Journal last year was 400, a good number. Forty to fifty of these went to A-
03. A-03 also had the highest release rate; 35% of submitted papers were accepted by A-
03 as opposed to 59% for the journal overall. More papers may have been submitted than
the 400 cited. Some papers don’t reach the TE’s if the Journal Editor Calvin Pearson
intercepted them first. Bill also noted that attendance at the annual meetings has been
high for the past 10 years in spite of declining membership. No one knows why the
number of people at the meetings has been high while membership is decreasing. There
is some discussion of merging C-2 with C-4 (crop physiology and crop ecology). Bill
further complimented the AE's, noting they have been workhorses. Anatoley Gitelson
and Rob Aiken are stepping down, Fritz van Evert, Claudia Wagner, Gerald Flerchinger
and Jim Kiniry are continuing their tenure and Ray Hunt will replace one of the two AE’s
that are retiring. Finally Bill announced that he would be completing his tenure as
Technical Editor. Ole Wendtroth, currently an associate editor, will replace him as TE.
Ole has had extensive experience as associate editor in other tri-society journals and
therefore is highly qualified to be TE.
Table 1. Statistics on recent issues of Agronomy Journal.
Volume year Total pages No. of articles Avg. length per International
published published article papers
published,
average %
2007 1758 203 8.0 21
2006 1696 194 8.4 26
2005 1692 188 7.9 23
2004 1828 208 8.1 22
2003 1676 184 8.1 24
2002 1492 165 7.8 23
2001 1456 184 7.0 34
2000 1352 175 6.9 31
Table 1 shows that the number of papers published has increased since 2000. Online
access is becoming more popular as paper subscriptions decrease (Table 2). The number
of subscriber is decreasing, however (Table 3).
Table 2. Subscriptions for Agronomy Journal as of October 2002–2007
Version 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
Print 2671 2319 2062 1779 1562 1429
Print and
194 215 238 249 246 119
electronic
Print and CD 363 315 284 271 245 214
Print, CD, and
113 112 119 118 113 113
electronic
CD 127 133 148 152 152 154
Electronic 102 139 180 246 294 487
Electronic and
123 167 227 270 263 275
CD
Total subscribers 3693 3400 3258 3085 2880 2791
Table 3. Number of active, online subscriptions to ASA-CSSA-SSSA journals.
Journal 2004 2005 2006 2007
Agron. J. 600 719 693 806
Crop Sci. 671 766 748 900
JEQ 507 594 603 669
SSSAJ 833 972 982 1010
VZJ 665 (includes 389 385 432 421
free)
Division Chair Report
Steve Evett gave a report on the 2007 meeting. The budget for the division was $4,027
including funds from past chairs. $2,000 was spent for speakers. Incoming funds included
a base amount of $1,000 plus a portion of registration fees apportioned on basis of
number of volunteered papers in the division. This is expected to amount to $3,000 to
$4,000.
Steve presented the symposia and sessions in the 2007 meetings. There were a total of
116 papers (60% oral and 40% poster). The presentations were distributed among 11
sessions (7 oral and 4 poster). The number of papers has been increasing since the decline
that ended in about 1997 (Figure1).
A-3 Annual Meeting Papers
180
160
140
120
Papers
100 Mean = 99
SD = 26
80
60
40
20
0
1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008
Figure 1 Numbers of papers presented at the annual meetings since 1998
There were two symposia:
A. Yield Response to Water – two sessions:
1. Examination of the Role of Crop Models in Predicting Water Use Efficiency –
Co-sponsored with C-02
2. Physiological Analysis of Crop Water Use and Efficiency – Co-sponsored with C-
02.
B. Past, Present, & Future of Research in Controlled Environments – Presiding: Oscar
Monje
The details of the symposia and sessions as presented by Steve are:
Monday, November 5, 2007
Symposium--Yield Response to Water:
Session 33: Oral, 9:25 am to 1:15 pm
Examination of the Role of Crop Models in Predicting Water Use
Efficiency,
Presiding, Steven Evett, USDA-ARS, Bushland, Texas
Session 61: oral, 12:55 pm to 3:45 pm
Physiological Analysis of Crop Water Use and Efficiency.
Presiding: Diane Rowland, USDA, NRCS
Co-sponsors: Crop Physiology and Metabolism (Div. C-2)
Session 34: Oral, 2:25 pm to 5:00 pm
Climate and Change: Effects on Agriculture and Effects of Agriculture
Presiding Frits van Evert, Wageningen Univ. and Res. Centre, the Netherlands
Session 35: Poster, 4:00 to 6:00 pm
Yield Responses to Water
Session 36: Poster, 4:00 to 6:00 pm
Elevated Carbon Dioxide Effects
Session 37: Poster, 4:00 to 6:00 pm
Modeling Crop Responses
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Session 137: Oral 9:25 am to 12:45 pm
Advances in Water Use and Water Use Efficiency
Presiding: Judy Tolk, USDA-ARS, Bushland, TX
Session 138: Oral 1:25 pm to 3:55 pm
Spectral Clues to Crop Behavior and Conditions
Presiding: John Angus, CSIRO Plant Industry, Australia
Session 139: Poster Session, 4:00 to 6:00 pm
Advances in Water Use and Water Use Efficiency
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Session 239: Oral, 9:25 am to 4:00 pm
Symposium
Past, Present, & Future of Research in Controlled Environments
Presiding, Oscar Monje, NASA
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Session 331: Oral, 8:25 am to 11:30 am
Models and Modeling of Crop and Soil Systems
Cosponsor: Soil Physics (Div. S-01)
Presiding: Jeffrey Baker, USDA-ARS
Steve announced the members receiving awards this year:
Achim Doberman Werner L Nelson Award for Diagnosis of Yield-limiting Factors
Bao-Luo Ma ASA Fellow
Gregory McMaster ASA Fellow
David Nelson ASA Fellow
Edward Fiscus Crop Science Research Award
Yakov Pachepsky Don and Betty Kirkham Soil Physics Award
Bruno Basso L.R. Ahuja Ag. Systems Modeling Award
Edward Gregorich SSSA Fellow
Terry Howell SSSA Fellow
Robert Izaurradle SSSA Fellow
.
A lively discussion regarding the publishing of data in society journals led by Fritz van
Evert and Jeff White followed. This was the result of a request by Bill Payne, TE for A-
03, at the 2006 meetings for Jeff and Fritz to look into the issues of publishing databases
in the Agronomy Journal. They were asked to develop criteria to be used to evaluate the
publishability of databases. There have been on-going discussions and debate regarding
the mechanics of publishing data over the past few years. Jeff mentioned that he had a
report written by a committee put together by Robert Lascano when Robert was TE. Fritz
went on give the pros of publishing data:.
• Allows for peer review of data
• A dataset can stand on its own
• Often there are few differences between making the data available as a database
or as a paper (they both have a similar structure e.g., research description and
results).
In order to make this happen some problems have to be resolved. These include
formalization of review criteria, and policies for storing data. Fritz and Jeff felt that in 1
to 2 years, we could be publishing our first data set. Steve Evett remarked that published
data could have value for model development. Ken Boote asked about the criteria for
assessing data quality. It was also mentioned that some journals already allow authors to
include data from a published study with the paper. The data are accessed by links at the
journals web site that are displayed with the paper. These journals include Agriculture,
Ecosystems and Environment and Water Resources Research. Many Elsevier journals
allow authors to append data to a paper. It was noted that some researchers may not want
to place their data on outside sites. The discussion continued on the mechanics of
archiving data. Many agreed that storing the data with the paper had many advantages
and related articles can be easily referenced. Furthermore, the new IT system installed by
the tri-societies should support links to data with journal papers.
The discussion then moved on to publishing symposium papers. If there is interest, Steve
said he would look into arranging for this.
Next Steve introduced the incoming chair, John Angus, and the discussion turned to
symposia for the 2008 meetings. Cristine Morgan said that John Norman is retiring and
suggested a symposium in his honor. John thanked Cristine for thinking of division A-03
as a venue for this. Cristine agreed to arrange the symposia.
John then thanked the division members for their support and remarked that he is
interested in returning that support to the division. He requested suggestions for other
topics for the 2008 meetings and asked those with ideas to contact him. John reiterated
the need for the recruitment of young members.
It was announced that the Biological Systems Simulation Group (BSSG) will have their
next meeting in Temple, TX. Ken Boote wondered if control of the BSSG should pass to
a more formal organization. There was some discussion but no resolution.
Greg McMaster announced a modeling conference in Nanjing China on April 19, 2008
and said the call for papers had been announced. More information was available on the
web site for the meeting.
Finally Jean Steiner mentioned that early career – student awards could provide a boost to
students deciding on careers in the area of A-3 interests. We should also make grad
students aware of the A-03 business meetings.
The meeting was then adjourned by John who thanked everyone for coming.
ATTENDING
Suresh Lochande suresh.Lokhande@ars.usda.gov
Dave Fleisber david.fleisber@ars.usda.gov
Giovanni Piccinni g-piccinni@tamu.edu
Oscar Monje oscar.monje@nasa.gov
Jerry Hatfield jerry.hatfield@ars.usda.gov
Greg McMaster greg.mcmaster@ars.usda.gov
Samsul Huda s.huda@uws.edu.au
Gaylon Campbell gaylon@decagon.com
Cristine Morgan cmorgan@ag.tamu.edu
Guillermo Baigorria gbaigorr@ifas.ufl.edu
K Raja Reddy krreddy@pss.msstate.edu
Magda Weller mweller@iung.pulawy.pl
Albert Weiss aweiss1@unl.edu
T.C. Hsiao tchsaio@ucdavis.edu
Paul Wilkens pwilkens@ifdc.org
Gerrit Hoogenboom gerrit@uga.edu
R Louis Baumhardt rlbaumhardt@cprl.ars.usda.gov
Paul D Colaizzi pcolaizzi@cprl.usda.gov
Elias Fereres ag1fecae@uco.es
Keith Ingram ktingram@ifas.ufl.edu
Kelly Thorp kelly.thorp@ars.usda.gov
John Sadler john.sadler@ars.usda.gov
Terry Howell tahowell@cprl.ars.usda.gov
Jean Steiner jean.steiner@ars.usda.gov
Judy Tolk jtolk@cprl.ars.usda.gov
John Baker john.baker@ars.usda.gov
Tom Sauer tom.sauer@ars.usda.gov
Fritz van Evert frits.vanevert@wur.nl
Jeff White jeffrey.white@ars.usda.gov
John Angus john.angus@csiro.au
Robert J Lascano r-Lascano@tamu.edu
Jim Kiniry Jim.Kiniry@ars.usda.gov
Dennis Timlin Dennis.Timlin@ars.usda.gov
Garry.O'Leary gjoleary@yahoo.com
John Annandale john.annandale@up.ac.za
Wes Rosenthal wrosenthal@brc.tamus.edu
Cynthia Rosenzweig crosenzweig@giss.nasa.gov
Kenneth J Boote kjb@ifas.ufl.edu
Mladen Todorovic mladen@iamb.it
Caludio Stockle stockle@wsu.edu
Pasquale Steduto pasquale.steduto@fao.org
Dirk Raes dirk.raes@biw.leuleven.be
Lee Heng l.heng@iaea.org
Colin.Campbell colin@decagon.com
Jim Ascough jim.ascough@ars.usda.gov
Jacques Wery wery@supagro.inra.fr
Pedro Berliner berliner@bgu.ac.il
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