some notes on release cycle for contributions

CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -28,6 +28,16 @@ If you don't hear back immediately, don’t get discouraged! We all have day job
 
 If the pull request is merged, testing will commence on our staging systems to ensure that the new feature doesn't cause any problems for anyone in production. We'll then merge the code into the master branch and push a new gem version!
 
+# Release cycle
+
+Plutus follows a [Git Flow](http://nvie.com/posts/a-successful-git-branching-model/) model for branching and release of code.
+When you issue a pull request, please ensure that you base your commit on the 'develop' branch. Once the pull has been merged, you won't see
+your changes in master until a "release" has been issued, which will merge the develop branch back into master.
+
+Prior to release, Plutus is run through a full suite of integration tests with our application. Depending on the size and number of
+updates to the code base, releases might not happen for a while. Typically though, if there is a significant change to functionality, or a bug is fixed,
+a release or "hotfix" will be pushed out ASAP.
+
 # Discussing Plutus
 
 If you'd like to discuss features, ask questions, or just engage in general Plutus-focused discussion, please see the [Plutus mailing list](https://groups.google.com/d/forum/plutus-gem) on Google Groups.