However, other changes took place as well, and they may or may not have been a result of the above-mentioned : there was a dramatic increase in the influx of manuscripts . This resulted in a huge number of manuscripts awaiting publication and, of course, a period between the date of acceptance and that of publication that extended to an unacceptable length .
A solution to levelling out this mountain would be to accept fewer manuscripts, but one would then be faced with the problem of choosing between equally good manuscripts .
The Board of Euphytica asked Kluwer Academic Publishers to take the necessary steps to solve this problem and to keep the publication time as short as possible . The Publisher suggested that the number of volumes per year be increased . This solution was adopted.
Therefore, two extra volumes (six issues) will be published in 1989, in addition to the four volumes (twelve issues) as announced already in 1988 .
We fully realize that this decision will burden the budgets of librarians, but we can assure them that all subscribers will get scientific value for their money . Furthermore, it should be realized that a short publication period is of great value to both readers and authors of Euphytica .