UC Cooperative Extension and the UC Berkeley Center for Forestry are currently soliciting abstracts for a special issue of the journal California Agriculture on Forest and Bioenergy. This issue will coalesce existing scholarship and identify gaps in the body of scientific knowledge around the impacts of forest-based bioenergy development.

Wood biomass as an energy feedstock in California has the potential to contribute substantially to the states Renewables Portfolio Standard for electricity generation and reduce the Global Warming Potential of transportation fuels. Removing woody biomass from forests can have a range of impacts on ecosystems, ecosystem service, and communities.

California Agriculture is the University of California's peer-reviewed, open access quarterly journal on agricultural, natural and human resources. It has been published continuously since 1946. The journal reaches a diverse, well-educated audience of academics, growers, research scientists in agencies, legislators, local and county officials and journalists (http://californiaagriculture.ucanr.edu). Authors are primarily, but not exclusively, faculty from the University of California and its Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

California Agriculture plans to publish a special collection highlighting significant research relating to forestry and bioenergy. Tentatively scheduled for spring of 2015, the primary content of the collection will be previously unpublished, original research, or reviews of such research, conducted at the nexus of forestry and energy systems. News material in the front section of the journal will provide a context for understanding the importance of reported findings.

Possible subject matter includes but is not limited to:

• Bioenergy silviculture
• Forestry residuals production and economics
• Dedicated wood energy crop production
• Life-cycle impacts of forest management/production systems
• Environmental impacts of wood bioenergy
• Sustainability of forest-based bioenergy systems

Author information

The length of manuscripts should be from 3,500 to 4,500 words. March 1, 2014 will be the final deadline for all manuscripts.

For a complete description of guidelines, you may download the California Agriculture Writing Guidelines from the website at http://californiaagriculture.ucanr.edu/submit.cfm. Please refer specifically to the opening descriptions of research and review articles under "Research articles."

If you would like to contribute to this special issue, write a brief (about 150 words) description of the article to be considered.

To see research and review articles published in a previous special collection, please refer to “Unequivocal — How climate change will affect California” the April-June 2009 edition, http://californiaagriculture.ucanr.org/issue.cfm?volume=63&issue=2