Science faces unprecedented challenges, such as responding to the demand for food for population growth (2 billion more people by 2050), a broad and complex deck of problems where horticultural sciences focus on preserving the natural systems that sustain us, by avoiding the expansion of the agricultural frontier and desertification, improving food quality, minimizing pollution, preserving biodiversity, obtaining emissions-neutral and energy efficient agri-food systems, adapting to climate change, such as that go beyond the capacity of researchers/funders and require the participation of society in general.

But involving social actors in research is not a simple task. Although science is a common good, it is not necessarily available to everyone, since scientific publications, for example, are a closed means of communication (mostly expensive and distant from the uninitiated or “specialist” scientists), where technological innovations are produced under intellectual property protection, an accelerated and disproportionate production of data, among other series of limitations that turns it into another good or service to satisfy needs and guarantee our well-being, without worrying about actively participating in it.

Within the search for alternatives to access knowledge, there are recent trends and movements such as Open Science; within research practices that not only encourage collaboration between researchers but also involve different social actors (politically responsible for financing, NGOs, local institutions/organizations, private companies, producers and citizens) are part of the generation and compilation of data, the results are publicly and transparently available, the research is in accordance with the specific needs of society and the legitimacy of the research approaches the magnitude of the current challenges where the participation of everyone in solving them is imperative.

For this issue, the Revista Colombiana de Ciencias Hortícolas (Colombian Journal of Horticultural Sciences) has different investigations related to crops and problems of Colombian and Latin American importance, such as the Fruits section, where the selection of superior cape gooseberry genotypes in different producing areas of Colombia is evaluated. In relation to the cultivation of 'Hass' avocado, a first study addressed the relationship between starch content and fruit retention, and a second study addressed the removal of nutrients in two locations in the Andes. On the other hand, in the strawberry crop, the technical and economic viability of the use of bacterial inoculants and macrotunnels was evaluated. Finally, the in vitro antimicrobial activity of two snake venoms was explored in the control of Xanthomonas and Fusarium of purple passion fruit.

The Vegetables section contains the results on the effect of detergents on the germination and initial growth of the habanero chili, in addition to the agronomic response of the application of silicate conditioners/fertilizers in the potato crop and the nutrient absorption curves for carrot in soils of the High Tropics.

The studies included within the Aromatic, Medicinal and Spices Plants section evaluated concentrations of growth regulators in the propagation of Cannabis sativa and the insecticidal and phytotoxic activity of the essential oil of Erygium foetidum.

Regarding the Other Species section, there are related works on the response of mutant rice plants in the efficient use of nitrogen, the greenhouse response of plants treated with silver nanoparticles for the control of Burkholderia glumae, the agronomic evaluation of quinoa as an intercrop in coffee plantations and a second part of the results in the establishment of DRIS indices for oil palm cultivation.

We extend the invitation to our authors and other audiences to involve in their research and manuscript preparation processes the deposit of data, protocols, algorithms, previous experiments or negative results in open access repositories for the reach of society in general and in what possible, a socialization of results in different media such as scientific journalism.