Current situation of persimmon science and technology in the world based on bibliometrics analysis

Abstract:【Objective】China is the origin of persimmon (Diospyros kaki Thunb.) , and the largest area of cultivation and amount of production of persimmon in the world. The situation of the research on persimmon of China is not clear. The object of this survey is to analyse the current situation and the future trend of the global science and technology of persimmon based on bibliometrics study.【Methods】Based on the data from the ISI Web of Science databases Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIEXPANDED) in the period of 2002—2016, bibliometric methods were used to investigate the research situations of persimmon through retriving the amounts of articles and reviews for years, countries and territories, institutes, authors, sources of journals, research areas and highly cited papers in Essential Since Indicators (ESI) , while the development trends were comprehensively analysed by the literature metrology method.【Results】There were eight types and 1 216 total papers including 1 095 articles (22 proceeding papers) , 46 reviews, 46 meeting abstracts, 14 editorial materials, 9 news items, 3 corrections and 3 letters. The number of research publications of articles and reviews were 1 141. The number of yearly published papers increased from 45 in 2002 to 115 in 2016. The average annual growth rate was 7.77% during 2002 to 2016. The 1 141 papers were published by 61 countries and territories, and among them, 1 072 (93.95%) papers were published by the top 10 countries and territories as Japan, China, Korea, Spain, America, Brazil, Turkey, Israel and Italy. Among the top10 countries, 969 (84.93%) were published by the top 5 countries and territoriest. There were totally 967 institutes contributed to the 1 141 papers, among them, 335 papers (29.36%) were published by 11 institutes, and 64 papers were published by Huazhong Agricultural University.There were totally 3 259 authors contributed to the 1 141 papers, among them, and there were11 authors who produced more than 19 papers, 3 from Huazhong Agricultural University of China, 3 from Saga University of Japan, 2 from National Agriculture and Food Research Organization of Japan, 2 from Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Agrarias of Spain, 1 from Kyoto University of Japan Professor Luo Zhengrong from Huazhong Agricultural University was ranked first for the number of publications. There were totally 424 source journals, the Scientia Horticulturae and the Journal of the Japanese Society for Horticultural Science were ranked the first and the second for the number of the publications, respectively (49 and45 papers) . Persimmon research was a multi-disciplinary and comprehensive area refered to 66 subjects, the top 3 research subjects were agronomy, Food Science and Technology and Chemistry with 178 papers.There were 7 ESI top papers including 6 highly cited papers and 1 hot paper. Results showed that Japan was the top country for persimmon research, followed by China and South Korea.【Conclusion】The number literature for persimmon research in China has been develoed rapidly in recent years, with the performance in the agencies, the authors and the highly cited papers, but the quality indexes are still low, so the academic influence of the literature should be improved in the future.