Welcome to this first issue of the twentieth volume of the Plant Biotechnology Journal (PBJ), an open access plant science journal offering free global access to our readers through the open access fee paid by our authors. In this editorial, we recognize our authors, reviewers and editors for their valuable contributions and evaluations in the past nineteen years.

PBJ has grown steadily in the number of articles published from ~50 articles in 2003 to ~300 articles in 2019 (Figure 1). In 2016, PBJ moved away from a subscription print journal to an open access online journal, offering open access for all articles published since inception. Contrary to the anticipated concerns on negative impact or journal growth, PBJ continued to grow by publishing more articles and improving ranking among the plant science or biotechnology journals. PBJ’s impact factor (IF) increased from 2.73 in 2004 to 9.8 in 2020, with anticipated IF of >11 in 2021 (Figure 1). While many high-ranking journals restrict the number of articles to maintain ranking, PBJ continues to publish more articles, while maintaining a rigorous review process. Irrespective of the evaluation metrics used (IF or CiteScore), PBJ currently ranks third among the plant science journals publishing original research. Scopus CiteScore continues to rank PBJ first among the 334 Agronomy and Crop Science journals.

These accomplishments would not have been possible without the contributions of their best research by our authors and dedicated service of our reviewers and editors. Table 1 shows the list of PBJ editors since inception. Drs. Keith Edwards (2002–2011), Henry Daniell (2002-present), Robert Birch (2002–2013), Loic Faye (2002–2012), Robert Henry (2002–2014) and Paul Quick (2002–2012) are the founding editors of PBJ. Other associate editors who served PBJ nearly a decade or more include Drs. Dominique Michaud (2007-present), Malcolm Campbell (2008–2020), Dave Edwards (2011–2021), Neal Stewart (2012-present) and Stephen Streatfield (2012-present). I thank all 39 editors (Table 1) for their valuable dedicated selfless service. I welcome new associate editors (Mario Caccamo, Nigel Halford and Wolfram Weckwerth) and senior editors (Shuangxia Jin, Johnathan Napier and Rajeev Varshney), who changed their role this year. Having served PBJ for two decades, I realize that associate editors or senior editors remain anonymous and their services are not adequately recognized. Therefore, brief bios of current associate editors are displayed on PBJ website. Before the pandemic, we were able to meet in London and discuss strategies to advance PBJ (Figures 2, 3). During the pandemic, we meet regularly via zoom (Figure 4). Thanks to Ms. Rosie Trice, Andrea Lewis, Adam Wheeler, Jim Ruddock and Hannah Qualtrough for facilitating these meetings.

Table 2 shows the list of PBJ reviewers who reviewed more than ten manuscripts in the past ten years. In particular, I thank reviewers who reviewed more than thirty manuscripts (Jacqueline Batley, Henry Daniell, Yiping Li, Wusheng Liu, Xianlong Zhang, Shuangxia Jin and Dominique Michaud), some of whom performed this service in addition to serving as associate editors. Timely reviews amidst the COVID pandemic have significantly decreased the average turnaround time (although few manuscripts were delayed when reviewers/editors experienced COVID-19), rewarding our authors with timely decisions on their submissions. As the Editor-in-Chief, I receive the brunt of criticism from authors for delays in the review process or upon receiving rejection letters and fully understand these challenges. Therefore, offering public service to the scientific community, on top of all other responsibilities, is truly appreciated.

Table 3 shows list of top 50 PBJ authors who contributed each more than 500 citations (and published 3 or more papers in PBJ to date). Journals are ranked by citations of published articles, irrespective of how citations are counted (based on all articles by Scopus for 4 years or by selectively excluding certain articles by the Web of Science). Table 3 specifically recognizes authors who consistently contributed their best articles to PBJ in the past two decades and help build this journal. Both editors in chief lead the way by contributing ~2400 citations, followed by more than 1,500 citations contributed by Drs. Barker, Edwards, Henry, Tuberosa and Morell. Several of the top authors have also served PBJ as editors, in addition to submitting their best research. Table 4 shows top 25 institutions of PBJ authors; Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Huazhong Agricultural University, and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) contributed more than 100 articles. CGIAR, University of California System, University of Queensland, CSIRO, CSIC, CAU, CNRS, John Innes Center, USDOE, INRAE contributed >50 articles.

Despite COVID-19, the number of submissions to PBJ has continued to increase in 2021. PBJ has received manuscripts from over 50 countries in 2021, representing all continents around the globe, highlighting the breadth of countries that submit to PBJ. Readership is also increasing rapidly and readers from over 210 countries have downloaded papers published in PBJ in 2021. We are on track to have over 1.5 million full-text downloads of PBJ articles in 2021.

PBJ has significantly increased social media activities in 2021, with the help of Professor Shuangxia Jin (PBJ Senior Editor, Huazhong Agricultural University, China) launching the PBJ WeChat account (PBJ ID: PBJ201903) on 1 March 2019. In 2021, this WeChat account has published 2,358 news articles including 371 original articles written by his students and 1987 articles cited from other social media sources. This has resulted in 50,300 followers, with 3,194,774 hits from 1,598,478 computers, 10,200 hits per day and 2,800 hits per news of each publication from Plant Biotechnology Journal. In 2021, PBJ WeChat account was recognized among the Top 10 academic accounts of 2020 in China, along with Cell Press, Springer/Nature, Science/AAAS, NEJM, The Lancet, Elsevier, ACS and RSC (Figure 5). In order to enhance communication of complex biotechnology concepts to the public, I am introducing graphical abstracts in 2022 for all full length articles published in PBJ. Likewise, in order to enhance rigor and depth of investigations reported in Brief Communications, I am introducing supplementary data, similar to other high impact plant science journals. In addition, I request that authors provide Twitter messages at the time of manuscript submission. Posts from the PBJ Twitter account @PlantBiotechJ have generated an average daily rate of 120 tweet impressions, for a total of 43 500 impressions over the last 12 months. In addition, I encourage authors to share news releases on their articles with the PBJ editorial office so that they can be included in Wiley Plant Science tweets @wileyplantsci, which currently has more than 16 900 followers.

Ethnicity in scientific journals has emerged as a major concern globally. PBJ has 12 White/13 non-White Associate Editors when compared to 12 White in Plant Cell, Annual Review of Plant Biology and 13 White/1 non-White in Plant Physiology. Thus, PBJ has a high diversity of associate editors representing different races, geographical locations and gender balance, although still does not reflect 2019–2020 authorship from American institutions (37 White/62 non-White corresponding authors and 269 White/403 non-White co-authors). PBJ is currently revitalizing the Editorial Board and inviting suggestions for new members to increase diversity further.

Message from the founding Editor-in-Chief, Prof. Keith Edwards (2002–2011)

Dear Henry,

Thank you for the email, I have been watching the PBJs rise with great interest and not without a little pride. Although I along with the then editorial team played its part in launching the PBJ, its recent success has been attributed to the hard work that you and your team have put in; it is this that has made the PBJ the first choice for any plant researcher keen to get their work published in the best, the most prestigious plant journal, so well done. I could see none but you who achieved this amazing feat!

It is interesting to see how applied plant research has changed in the past 20 years. While there is still much to do and discover in terms of basic plant biology, the development of a few core tools such as high-throughput sequencing/genotyping and CRISPR-Cas9 has enabled plant scientists working on a host of crop species to deliver varieties with improved agronomic characteristics; for instance, the recently developed wheat lines with reduced levels of asparagine led to significantly lower the levels of acrylamide in cooked foods. Of course, plant scientists, especially applied scientists, do not exist in a vacuum; hence, for me, the most exciting development is the recent suggestion that the UK government intends to facilitate the use of gene editing in agriculture. Although this turn around has been achieved by concerted effort, I personally think that the research published in the PBJ has played a part in producing convincing results. Gene editing is not only safe but is also highly effective in generating plants with properties that are beneficial to human health and wealth. Surely, such developments mean that applied plant research will remain the most exciting biological subject to work in.

Hence, do keep up the good work and do let me know what input you might need for your editorial. Recent picture is attached; it is me happily enjoying semi-retirement in the UK’s Lake District (Figure 6).

Best regards

Keith J. Edwards, Functional Genomics: Office 316, Life Sciences, University of Bristol, 24 Tyndall Avenue, Bristol, BS8 1TQ.

Message from Prof. Martin Parry, Publication Officer, SEB, on launching PBJ

Dear Henry,

I remember going to Blackwell to pitch the idea of launching the Plant Biotech journal, who were enthusiastic and also keen to involve SEB. Together, we agreed to proceed and were fortunate indeed to have Keith as the first EIC. His careful stewardship ensured the journal made great strides and made my task of convincing the owners to keep faith with the journal much easier. Since you took over, the journal has gone from strength to strength weathering the challenge of going OA without a hitch and PBJ is highly respected within our community. For me, personally it is one of those things that I can be most proud of initiating.

Best,

Prof. Martin Parry, Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YQ.

Without the outstanding leadership of Ms. Rosie Trice – Senior Publishing Manager at Wiley, Oxford, PBJ would not be able to function and I convey my deepest appreciation, especially on expanding the editorial board. I thank PBJ production editor at Wiley, Ms. Rajalakshmi Sundararamanujam for production from Chennai, India, and timely production and release of PBJ issues every month, Ms. Madhura Amdekar for her expertise in the evaluation of image manipulation, Ms. Reshma Raghu for editorial handling of manuscripts and Ms. Andrea Lewis (Associate Managing Editor) for management. PBJ has also benefitted from the ongoing support from the Society for Experimental Biology and Association of Applied Biologists who co-own PBJ with the Publisher (Wiley).

PBJ offers several new options for readers to evaluate the short- and long-term impacts of published articles, including Altmetric scores, and Wiley is working towards improving this service by offering details on article readership. I encourage all readers to visit the journal homepage (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/14677652) to take advantage of open access, to keep up to date with the latest developments and to sign up for our automated e-alerts in order to receive emailed notifications when new issues or Early View articles are published. Please note that readers should ‘opt-in’ to receive e-alerts, by visiting the journal homepage and registering at the ‘Get Content Alerts’ area.

PBJ management has approved my request to waive or reduce open access fees for manuscripts recommended for publication from authors who do not have adequate funding for publications. Likewise, PBJ waives open access fees for invited reviews and other contributions. I am fully committed to advancing PBJ’s mission of publishing high-quality manuscripts with free global access, and I look forward to your continued support in 2022.