On January 13, the New Crops 2024 Maize Biology Forum was held at Sanya Institute. Chunpeng Song, editor-in-chief of New Crops and the leader of the discipline of biology at Henan University (HENU), and Lixin Zhang, vice president of HENU, were invited to attend. The Forum was also attended by more than 100 teachers and students and 8 well-known experts engaged in maize biology research from China Agricultural University, Sichuan Agricultural University, and Huazhong Agricultural University to give academic reports. The opening ceremony was hosted by Zhubing Hu, executive editor of New Crops.

At the Forum, Chungpeng Song expressed that the New Crops 2024 Maize Biology Forum is an important part of the New Crops journal forum series. It is essential for the journal to develop into a world-class journal. The New Crops journal will be dedicated to solving basic problems in crop biology, revealing unknown mechanisms and biological processes, and attracting more excellent articles from around the world. Chunpeng Song put forward three opinions: firstly, New Crops should serve as a platform for scientific researchers to communicate about the national food security strategy and the technological development of the seed industry; secondly, it should grasp the opportunity of the Excellence Action Plan for China STM Journals to learn from world-class journals so as to grow into a world-class journal as soon as possible; thirdly, New Crops should serve the development of the “Double First-Class” discipline of HENU, attracting and cultivating more talents.

Lixin Zhang delivered a speech to introduce HENU briefly. He hoped that the participating experts would have in-depth academic exchanges and provide more valuable suggestions on the development of the New Crops journal. Zhe Chen, vice president of Sanya Institute, briefly introduced the basic situation of Sanya Institute. Dr Tong Li, editor of New Crops, reported to the participating experts on the development of the New Crops journal in HENU. Professor Jiansheng Li of China Agricultural University expressed his expectations for the development and prospects of the journal.

The 8 experts from China Agricultural University, Sichuan Agricultural University, Huazhong Agricultural University and Henan University gave reports respectively, which presented the latest research progress in related fields. The academic report attracted widespread interest among the teachers and students, and also raised their questions and thoughts on the reports.