Status and trends of sweet sorghum research based on bibliometrics

Sweet sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) is an important forage and bioenergy crop. A rapidly growth of literatures on sweet sorghum has been shown in recent years. From the perspective of understanding the status of current researches, particularly focusing on the hot issues on this topic, the major purpose of this paper is to analyze the literatures on sweet sorghum published during 1985-2015 using bibliometric methods based on Scopus and CNKI database, with aspects of the issued amount, countries and institutions, highly cited papers, core authors, journals, and keyword, etc. The results indicated that the studies on sweet sorghum were very active, the amount of papers increased fast in the last decade. The study on bio-ethanol production using sweet sorghum as feedstock is a popular research topic in this area. Overall, research on sweet sorghum in China has been in the advanced level in the world, the number of research papers and institutions, as well as the core authors have been ranked as No. 1 in the world. The main domestic research institutions including Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai Jiaotong University, and the Provincial Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Liaoning, Heilongjiang and Xinjiang, have been carried out fruitful work on variety breeding, the technology of bio-ethanol production, resistance traits, germplasm introduction, identification and evaluation. The research achievements have effectively promoted the development of sweet sorghum industry. The study results could provide reference for researchers and policy-makers on sweet sorghum industry.