BreedingValue publication ranked as one of the most widely read papers in ′The Plant Journal‘

The BreedingValue position paper “Towards smart and sustainable development of modern berry cultivars in Europe” describing the project objectives and plans published in ‘The Plant Journal’ has now been ranked among the top 10% of papers published in this journal.

The BreedingValue position paper was published in 2022 introducing the BreedingValue project, its main aims and approach. The article argues that the projected continuous increase in the market demand for berries will require increased breeding efforts. With the product quality now becoming a high priority in breeding and the necessity to include traits related to consumer health, resilience to biotic and abiotic stress and also sensorial quality the complexity of berry breeding programmes increases. The increased breeding efforts have been recognized at the EU level by continuous support for EU-coordinated projects. The paper therefore also gives an outline about previous berry research and explains that since 1994 EU-research projects focusing on berries have characterised genetic resources, developed modern tools for high-throughput screening, and published data in publicly available repositories. With the aim to connect European strawberry, raspberry and blueberry germplasm resources with breeding programs, and to transfer genetic resources, knowledge and tools to researchers, pre-breeders and other stakeholders, the Horizon 2020 BreedingValue project was initiated in 2021 to boost European soft fruit breeding as explained by the article published in ′The Plant Journal‘.

This article, to which most of the BreedingValue consortium partners have contributed, stands now out as one of the most widely read papers in ′The Plant Journal′ based on the number of downloads among work published in an issue of that journal in the year 2022, up to 12 months after publication. This achievement is a testament to the recognition and celebration of our work within the community.

′The Plant Journal′ is among the most renown peer-reviewed scientific journals of plant sciences ranking among top 20 plant science journals by independent authorities. Its impact-factor of 7.2 (2022) reflects its wide recognition by the international plant sciences research community.

The article published by the Horizon 2020 BreedingValue project is freely accessible via the following link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/tpj.15876