Global characteristics and trends of researches on watermelon: Based on bibliometric and visualized analysis

Abstract

Watermelon is an important horticultural plant. A bibliometric analysis of the watermelon literature was carried out in order to analyze the research state, hotspots, and trends, as well as to highlight the overall watermelon research development from a holistic viewpoint. The summary of watermelon research is given via metrological analysis based on a set of indices using a newly built Bibliometrix R-package tool. This study gathered 6,632 documents indexed in the Core Collection of Web of Science (WoS) in the domain of watermelon from 1992 to 2022 using bibliometrix. The results indicated that the number of published articles showed an apparently upward trend. The United States was in the first place, with Plant Disease being the most productive journal. Levi A from the United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service is the most prolific author, and Levi A is the most cited; The most frequently used keywords by authors are "growth", "resistance", "identification", "yield", "quality" "plants", "watermelon stomach" and "expression"; The most talked-about issues in this subject are resistance, yield, and quality, which highlight the crucial research areas. To effectively comprehend the turning moments for future research, it is useful to monitor the hotspots and frontiers of watermelon studies. The results highlight the future paths for study in the field of watermelon and provide useful information for researchers interested in the topic.

Keywords: Bibliometric analysis; Bibliometrix; Visualized analysis; Watermelon.

Fig. 1

The number of publications and average publications citation per year of the research on watermelon from 1992 to 2022 in the Web of Science Core Collection.

Fig. 2

Countries with the research collaboration.

Fig. 3

Tree map of the top 10 subject categories.

Fig. 4

Word cloud and tree map representations of the top 50 author keywords. (A) fifty author keyword clouds; (B) 50 author keywords mapped out as a tree. Labels are often single words, and the font size and color of each label indicate how frequently it is used.

Fig. 5

The output of the top ten authors throughout time.

Fig. 6

Top 10 keywords, journals, and countries plotted over three fields.

Fig. 7

examination of keyworks' cogitations. Clusters 1, 2, and 3 are represented by the colors blue, green, and red, respectively. The relationships between two keyworks are shown by lines between two circles; the closer the relationship, the thicker the line9.

Fig. 8

Co-citation analysis of authors. The relationships between two writers are shown by lines between two circles; the tighter the link, the thicker the line.