30 Years of agronomic research in Iran: I. Evaluation of trends, gaps and setting priorities

بوم شناسی کشاورزی

Article 3, Volume 5, Issue 4 - Serial Number 18, December 2013, Pages 383-394   

Document Type: Scientific - Research

DOI: 10.22067/jag.v5i4.32993

Authors

Mehdi Nassiri Mahallati; Alireza Koocheki; Reza Ghorbani; Surur Khorramdel^*

Department of Agronomy and Plant Breeding, Faculty of Agriculture Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran

Abstract

During the last few decades scientific researches in different fields of agricultural sciences have been grown drastically. However, there is no published study, if any, on structural analysis of the national agricultural research system of Iran and setting priorities for the future. In the present study 2361 scientific papers published during the three decades in the domestic journals were surveyed to analyze the research structure, gaps and priorities. The papers were categorized based on crop species, temporal and spatial scale of experiments, subject and type of the researches and the results were subjected to the statistical analysis. Number of published papers followed a sigmoid growth further with a long lag period of 10 years and leveled off at 240 papers per year. Cereals and industrial crops had the highest frequency in the surveyed papers while forage, medicinal and pulse crops were the next abundant species, respectively. Annual experiments (83% of total papers) were the most frequent for all crops however, less than 10% of papers were the result of biannual experiments (> 2 years). In addition frequency of experiments conducted in research stations and protected environments (laboratory and greenhouse) were 58 and 30%, respectively indicating the small contribution of studies at regional/national scale. Management practices were the most prevalent topics among the papers (35% of total). However, sustainability of agroecosystems, agricultural climatology and crop modeling were less frequent subjects (

Keywords

National agricultural research system; Reseach periorities; Research scale; Research subject

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