A BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF MICROBIAL INOCULANT RESEARCH IN ORGANIC AGRICULTURE

Abstract

Organic agriculture, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria constitute three interconnected pillars of sustainable soil management and ecologically sound crop production. Despite the increasing volume of scientific publications at this nexus, no comprehensive bibliometric synthesis exists to map the global research landscape, identify intellectual hubs, or trace thematic evolution over time. This study presents a systematic bibliometric analysis of 1,533 Scopus-indexed documents published between January 2010 and May 2026 to address this gap. Literature was retrieved from the Scopus database and bibliometric analyses were performed using the bibliometrix R package, and VOSviewer. Key analyses included annual production trends, source analysis, keyword co-occurrence networks and open-access distribution. Annual output grew nine-fold from 27 documents (2010) to 243 (2025), with a sharp post-2019 acceleration coinciding with expanded global sustainability policy mandates. A total of 551 unique journals published the corpus, led by Science of the Total Environment, followed by Agronomy and Scientia Horticulturae. Keyword analysis identified dominant clusters; Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and sustainable agriculture were the highest-frequency keywords, with PGPR, soil health, rhizosphere, and fruit quality forming a strongly interconnected conceptual core. The keyword co occurrence network revealed emerging themes including climate change resilience, bio stimulants and life cycle assessment as post-2020 frontiers. This bibliometric analysis provides a data-driven portrait of a rapidly expanding field and identifies critical knowledge gaps, particularly in integrated AMF-PGPR consortia studies for tropical fruit crops that represent priority directions for future research.