Selected Resources for Graduate Students in Plant Sciences (Agronomy, Horticulture) : Find Research Articles & Data
Searching the Research Literature
As a student and researcher at UW-Madison, you have access to a true wealth of information! We subscribe to thousands of journals, hundreds of databases, and maintain a vast print collection. This page provides suggestions for finding (and retrieving) articles from journals within your discipline. Do not be stopped by paywalls! If you are unable to find the article in our collections, we can almost always obtain a copy through our Interlibrary Loan service.
Please contact us if you need assistance. We can help you to construct efficient searches, set alerts, retrieve full text of articles and identify journals in which to publish. AskSEL@library.wisc.edu
Selecting and Searching Databases by Subject or Type
You can access databases from the library home page (library.wisc.edu). Use the dropdown menu at the Catalog button to navigate to Databases.
There are several ways to browse and to select databases:
1) Search by the title of the database (for example, "Cab Abstracts").
2) Use the Browse by Subject/Type page to discover databases that find literature on your research topic.
3) Visit the Top 10 Databases page to quickly access a selection of popularly-used databases.
Consider the databases listed, below, for conducting your search of the research literature.
- Agriculture and Environmental ScienceCross-disciplinary database of full-text content along with indexing of global literature across these fields and related disciplines.
- Agris (FAO, Agriculture, United Nations)International database of 2.6 million+ references to world literature covering all aspects of agricultural sciences and technology. Includes gray literature not often available through other publication and distribution channels.
- BioOneAccess critical, peer-reviewed research in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences. Contains more than 200 bioscience research titles from leading scientific societies, institutions, museums, and presses.
- CAB AbstractsComprehensive database of the applied life sciences including animal and crop production, environmental impacts, horticulture, nutrition, plant breeding, plant pathology, soil science, and veterinary science.
- Google ScholarMulti-disciplinary search engine to scholarly articles.
Note: Accessing Google Scholar through our libraries will help you to bypass paywalls (i.e retrieve more full-text through our subscriptions). - GreenFILEAccess to scholarly, government, and general-interest sources addressing environmental effects of individuals, corporations and local/national governments.Topics covered include climate change, green building, pollution, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, recycling, and more.
- PubAg (US Department of Agriculture)Portal to USDA-authored and other agricultural research on nutrition, food safety, animal and crop production, sustainable agriculture, rural development, economic and policy issues, statistics.
- ScopusLarge, multidisciplinary database that covers science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities. Includes tools to track, analyze, and visualize research.
- Web of ScienceCollection of databases that index the world’s leading scholarly literature in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities, as published in journals, conference proceedings, symposia, and more. Includes citation network data.
Getting to Full Text
Follow 
(Find It button) or the "Find It at UW Madison" link in most databases to:
- get online full text (when available)
- see if the journal is available in print (Library Catalog)
- request a copy of the article if full text is not available online ("Request a Copy" link)
If you already have a citation, use this Citation Search to search for your article.
Digital Collections, Data, Imagery
- Biodiversity Heritage LibraryComprehensive digital collection of legacy literature of biodiversity (botanical and natural histories).
- Plant Humanities Initiative, Plant Humanities LabExplore cultural histories of plants, influences and uses by human societies.
- PLANTS DatabaseProvides standardized information about the vascular plants, mosses, liverworts, hornworts, and lichens of the U.S. and its territories.