The origins of the International Journal Plant and Soil

Plant and Soil was founded in 1948 under the auspices of the Royal Netherlands Society of Agricultural Science. Accompanying seven papers (written in English, French and German languages), the editors wrote in a foreword to the first edition, that the publishing facilities in the field of agricultural science were limited and that existing journals were overcrowded. At that time, papers in plant physiology and soil science connected to plant nutrition, soil microbiology and soil-borne plant diseases were particularly welcome for publication in this new journal. It was a desire of the Editors ‘that the new Journal may contribute to the re-establishment of international intercourse in this important branch of science.’ Now, 74 years on, of which almost half have been under the editorship of Professor Hans Lambers, the international journal, Plant and Soil, has published 476 volumes dedicated to increasing our mechanistic understanding of the interactions between plants and the soil in which they are growing. This scope is evolving, and Plant and Soil now also welcomes quality papers that investigate aspects of plant nutrition, agronomy and ecology that shift our fundamental understanding of plant production systems. Recognised as 14th of 91 journals in Agronomy, 36th of 235 journals in Plant Sciences and 10th of 37 journals in Soil Science, Plant and Soil is one of the most prestigious journals for researchers to publish primary research and quality reviews on plant-soil studies and has gone from an impact factor of less than 1 in 1992 to a current five-year impact factor of 4.7. It can be safely said that the success of Plant and Soil is due largely to the energetic enthusiasm and high-quality editorial work of Hans Lambers. Every manuscript submitted to Plant and Soil is checked by him, before being sent to editors and then to reviewers. Through this skilful editorial work and subsequent rigorous reviewing, Plant and Soil only publishes excellent papers, fulfilling the aspiration of the original editors back in 1948.

Changes in Plant and Soil over the last 30 years

The very first paper published under the auspices of Hans Lambers as Editor in Chief of Plant and Soil in 1992 (Fig. 1a) focused on a study of an acid rain manipulation experiment on heathland species in the Netherlands (Heijne et al. 1992). Coincidentally, this paper originated from Utrecht University, where Hans himself held the Chair of Ecophysiology from 1985 until 2001. In 1994, Plant and Soil published its very first issue with a photograph on the cover to highlight research reported in the current issue (Fig. 1b) and colour covers were introduced in 2004 (Fig. 1c). The possibility of having one’s research showcased on the front cover of Plant and Soil has permitted many authors to illustrate their papers with beautiful photographs that reach out to a wide audience.

Fig. 1
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Covers of Plant and Soil since 1992, from (a) the first issue that Hans handled as Editor in Chief (volume 144, No 1), to (b) the first issue with a photograph in 1994 (volume 161, No 1) and (c) one of the first issues featuring a colour photograph (volume 262, May 2004)

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A major change for Plant and Soil occurred in 2004, with the merger of Kluwer Academic Publishers and Springer Science + Business Media. Springer Nature was then formed in 2015 by the merger of Nature Publishing Group, Palgrave Macmillan and Macmillan Education with Springer Science + Business Media. Benefiting from the Springer electronic submission system in 2004, authors no longer had to send their papers by post to the editorial office in Wageningen (photocopied in triplicate, with original photograph plates meticulously guillotined and delicately glued onto sheets of paper). Although carbon-costly, authors and reviewers benefited from a personal touch, with hand-written notes from Hans (and reviewers’ comments written in red ink, often with terrible handwriting that needed to be deciphered). Having no search engines to look for potential reviewers in the field of a submitted manuscript, meant that finding reviewers 30 years ago depended largely on Hans’ global network of scientific contacts, strongly supported by a good team of editors with similar contacts and experienced managing editors to support him.

Among the major scientific changes influencing plant and soil research over the last 30 years are the development of computing, statistical and molecular techniques. Coinciding with Hans’ appointment as Editor in Chief of Plant and Soil, the statistical software R was developed and made open access in 1993 (Ihaka 1998). Collaborations among data scientists have created one of the most popular data-mining packages available today referred to in almost every paper published in Plant and Soil over the last 10 years. Such analytical power is a far cry from the precious ‘Statistical Tables for Research Workers’ (Fisher 1925) that were still used by many in 1992. Fortunately, personal computers also arrived on our desks at around the same time (some even had access to the ‘ethernet’), so that scientists in the early 1990s were able to work faster and more efficiently when revising Plant and Soil papers returned from the reviewers. This revolution in data science has gone hand in hand with a revolution in molecular biology. The development of new molecular techniques has dramatically increased the generation of data concerned with the interactions between plants and soil. However, it has also brought new challenges for data analysis, statistics and for interpreting the data in the terms of its true biological meaning.

With Hans’s direction, Plant and Soil has remained a bastion of understanding the functional significance of this tsunami of post-genomic data (Fig. 2). This focus on function and mechanism will stand the journal in good stead in the future as the relevance of big data needs to be realised.

Fig. 2
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A collection of photos of Professor Hans Lambers during his time as Editor of Plant and Soil along with a cluster root, the focus of much of his pioneering work

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Marschner reviews

In 2007, Hans Lambers initiated the publication of a new series of prestigious invited reviews authored by prominent scientists and emerging leaders, in particular in the field of soil–plant interactions. Hans named this new review series after the late Professor Horst Marschner (i.e. “Marschner Reviews”), who made outstanding contributions to plant mineral nutritional physiology as well as understanding and mechanistic explanations of soil–plant interactions (Lambers et al. 2007). Now, 85 Marschner Reviews have been published, four in this special issue; combined, they have received almost 12,500 citations, corresponding to about 7% of the total citations Plant and Soil has received between 2007–2022. Marschner reviews are being cited at least twice as frequently as regular articles or review papers. Of the Marschner Review papers, the five papers that have received the largest number of citations are related to well-known and widely studied research topics:

  1. i)

    agricultural benefits achieved by biochar applications, published by Atkinson et al. (2010) has received 1249 citations

  2. ii)

    biofortification of cereal grains with zinc by using agronomic and genetic approaches by Cakmak (2008) has received 1065 citations

  3. iii)

    role of biological nitrogen fixation in agricultural systems by Herridge et al. (2008) has received 815 citations

  4. iv)

    importance and relevance of mycorrhizal associations in respect to global diversity, nutritional adaptations and ecological strategies of plants by Brundrett (2009) has received 774 citations, and

  5. v)

    role of plant biostimulants in root growth, nutrient uptake, and stress tolerance of plants by Calvo et al. (2014) has received 773 citations.

Special issues

Special Issues represent a further popular element of Plant and Soil. In the past 30 years, 68 Special Issues have been published, generally focusing on various topical and emerging research areas. When publishing a Special Issue, Hans paid particular attention to trending research topics and crucial research fields. The top subjects of the published special issues in the past 30 years are mainly related to i) the relevance and understanding of rhizosphere processes, ii) studying the importance of root function and root responses to environmental stresses and iii) the role of biological nitrogen fixation in sustainable crop production. Those that Hans was personally involved with, and feels were particularly impactful and stimulated new research include:

  • Structure and functioning of cluster roots and plant responses to phosphate deficiency, published in 2003 (Volume 248, issue 1–2, January)

  • Root physiology—from gene to function, published in 2005 (Volume 274, issue 1–2, July)

  • Plant-soil interactions in global biodiversity hotspots, published in 2016 (Volume 403, issue 1–2, June)

  • Plant-soil interactions in the Amazon rainforest, published in 2020 (Volume 450, issue 1–2, May)

Many of the Special Issues published in Plant and Soil during the period 1993–2022 were also dedicated to publishing selected presentations from plant nutrition-focused international conferences and events. One well known example in this regard is the International Plant Nutrition Colloquium (IPNC) organized almost every four years. This continues with the forthcoming IPNC-related Special Issue, which is expected to be published in 2023 following the 19th IPNC in Brazil in August, 2022.

Scientific impact of papers published in Plant and Soil since 1992

The number of times an article is cited is one measure of its scientific impact. White, in his survey of Contemporary Citation Classics (1992–2017) classified by the Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection as being in the subject “Plant Sciences” and defined as having 517 citations or more (White 2018a) included 10 papers from Plant and Soil (White 2018b; Supplementary Information 1). These 10 papers were classic reviews by Marschner and Dell (1994), summarising the role of mycorrhizal symbioses in nutrient acquisition by plants, Westoby (1998), proposing a leaf-height-seed ecological strategy scheme, Jones (1998), Hinsinger (2001) and Dakora and Phillips (2002), describing the direct and indirect effects of root exudates on nutrient acquisition by plants, Six et al. (2002) and Rasse et al. (2005), discussing the mechanisms responsible for the stabilisation of soil organic matter, Lehmann et al. (2003), reporting the influence of soil amendments, including biochar, on nutrient availability and leaching, Vessey (2003), presenting the potential of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria in agriculture, and the Marschner review by Atkinson et al. (2010), suggesting the potential benefits of biochar in temperate agriculture.

A further analysis of papers published in Plant and Soil between January 1992 and April 2022 (performed on 1st May 2022) revealed a total of 40 papers with 500 or more citations in the WoS Core Collection (Supplementary Information 2). Ten of these papers (Atkinson et al. 2010; Cakmak 2008; Hinsinger 2001; Jones 1998; Lehmann et al. 2003; Rasse et al. 2005; Six et al. 2002; Van Zwieten et al. 2010; Vessey 2003; Westoby 1998) had been cited over 1000 times. Many of these papers describe the chemistry of root exudates and their effects on the physical, chemical and biological processes in the rhizosphere. Significantly, they include five articles from an extremely popular Special Issue entitled “Rhizosphere: Achievements and Challenges” edited by Yves Dessaux, Philippe Hinsinger and Philippe Lemanceau, published in 2009 (Fig. 3). Other subjects that feature prominently in these papers are the effects of biochar on soil properties and plant growth, the interactions between plants and soil microbes, and the sequestration of carbon in the soil. Authors of more than two of these papers were Johannes Lehmann and his colleagues Thomas Nehls, Christoph Steiner and Wolfgang Zech, who published several well-cited papers on the effects of biochar on mycorrhizal associations and crop production, Philippe Hinsinger and Davey Jones, who have described how roots modify the physical, chemical and biological properties of the rhizosphere, and Cornelia Rumpel, who reviewed carbon sequestration in soils. Among the papers with more than 500 citations were four papers (Cakmak 2002; Hinsinger et al. 2003; Jones 1998; Kochian et al. 2005) listed in the 10 papers suggested by Hans Lambers as being among the most impactful papers published in Plant and Soil during his tenure as Editor in Chief in his personal opinion (Supplementary Information 3).

Fig. 3
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Collection of images taken from some of the most highly-cited papers found in the most successful Plant and Soil special issue “Rhizosphere: Achievements and Challenges”

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A search for Highly Cited papers in the WoS Core Collection on 1st May 2022 returned 71 papers published in Plant and Soil (Supplementary Information 4). Highly Cited papers are defined as being in the top 1% most cited in a particular subject and year over the last decade. About one third of these (24) were classified as review papers. Nine papers co-authored by Hans Lambers were found in this search. Other prominent authors included Alan Richardson (4 papers), Leo Condron (3 papers), Jonathan Lynch (3 papers), Claude Plassard (3 papers), Qirong Shen (3 papers) and Sally Smith (3 papers). Many of the recent Highly Cited papers published in Plant and Soil describe the roles of microbes, including biostimulants, in the rhizosphere (e.g., Bashan et al. 2014; Calvo et al. 2014) which may reflect a general shift away from studying the abiotic interactions between roots and their physical and chemical environment (e.g., Hinsinger 2001; Hinsinger et al. 2003; Dakora and Phillips 2002; Jones 1998) to the characterisation of the biotic communities sustained by plants and their ecosystem functions. There were also several Highly Cited papers describing the properties of biochar and its effects on soil functions (e.g., Liu et al. 2013; Park et al. 2011), reflecting a continued interest in this subject. Other subjects covered in Highly Cited papers were the forms, acquisition and ecological consequences of soil phosphorus (e.g., Lambers et al. 2018; Richardson et al. 2011; Turner et al. 2013), the phenotyping of root systems (e.g., Trachsel et al. 2011), the location, composition and turnover of soil organic matter (e.g., Rumpel and Kögel-Knabner 2011) and the hyperaccumulation of metals in plants (e.g., van der Ent et al. 2013). The list of recent Highly Cited papers included a further two papers (Lambers et al. 2018; Turner et al. 2013) suggested by Hans to be among the most impactful papers published in Plant and Soil during his tenure as Editor in Chief (Supplementary Information 3).

White (2018a) suggested that about 20% of all Highly Cited papers would become Contemporary Citation Classics. In addition to Rumpel and Kögel-Knabner (2011), Park et al. (2011), van der Ent et al. (2013) and Calvo et al. (2014), which can already be identified as Contemporary Citation Classics, other recent papers published in Plant and Soil likely to become Contemporary Citation Classics based on their number of citations per year include Richardson et al. (2011), Trachsel et al. (2011), Liu et al. (2013) and Bashan et al. (2014), together with Craine et al. (2015), who explained the origin of different nitrogen isotope ratios of plants and soils, Silveira et al. (2016), who described the ecology and evolution of plants of the Brazilian Campo Rupestre, Zhao and Wang (2020), who reviewed the mechanisms and mitigation of arsenic and cadmium accumulation in rice, and Wang et al. (2021), who investigated the effects of root exudates on soil nitrogen mineralisation.

In addition to the papers cited above, Hans Lambers suggested four more papers (Brown et al. 2017; Li et al. 2009; Marschner and Römheld 1994; Richardson et al. 2022) that were likely to be among the most impactful papers published in Plant and Soil during his tenure as Editor in Chief. The review by Marschner and Römheld (1994) is a classic textbook reference and was credited with 421 citations in the WoS Core Collection on 1st May 2022. The impact of the three more recent papers will be proven by the test of time.

An evolving landscape for plant and soil research – the perspective of the Editor in Chief

In the 30 years that Hans Lambers has been Editor of Plant and Soil, research has moved away from siloed science towards interdisciplinary team research. In fact, interdisciplinarity is fundamental to the ethos of Plant and Soil. It is the only journal that actively encourages the study of interactions between plants and soil and therefore fosters research at the intersection between biology, chemistry and physics. This is down, in no small measure, to Hans’s direction of the journal. “What I have increasingly realised during my 30 years as Editor in Chief of Plant and Soil is that the classical boundaries between disciplines I grew up with as a student and early-career researcher have vanished. Working with ecologists, agronomists, plant pathologists, chemists, molecular biologists, geologists, geographers and soil scientists has been a delight, and these interactions have allowed progress that would be impossible when working in silos. That has been my personal experience, but I am sure that is true for science in the last 30 years more broadly as well.”

As the consummate interdisciplinary scientist, famous for his studies in plant physiology, soil biochemistry and ecology of biodiverse habitats (Fig. 2), Hans has always looked for a multitude of solutions to a problem and developed new theories which have challenged the dogmas of the day. Importantly, he does this with observation of nature as his guide. An example of this is the seminal work Hans instigated on the role of cluster roots in phosphorus-impoverished soils. He summarises this work and highlights the importance of coming out of your silo when he says, “When I moved to Australia, I was astounded by how many non-mycorrhizal species, genera and families there were, especially in the biodiversity hotspot in south-western Australia. This was at odds with what I had been teaching my students at Utrecht University that mycorrhizas were important for phosphorus acquisition. Nobody could give me a satisfactory answer. Looking back, there was an answer, but only if you put two and two together, and that took me several years. The answer we were after is that species with cluster roots and functionally equivalent strategies based on carboxylate release are more effective when soils are severely phosphorus impoverished”.

Hans’s work in this field has validated early findings published in Plant and Soil that mycorrhizas are only effective within a narrow range of low-P conditions; when P availability is below this range, they are ineffective (Parfitt 1979). Importantly, it has been shown that mycorrhizal and non-mycorrhizal species are not randomly distributed in the landscape but occupy opposite ends of a phosphorus continuum (Lambers et al. 2006, 2008). This was further validated with studies using chronosequences, such as the dune systems at Jurien Bay in Western Australia (Zemunik et al. 2015, 2016). However, despite this novel observation it was also clear that some mycorrhizal species did exist in the severely P-impoverished soils, so the question then shifted to why this was the case? Hans says, “We showed that some of them are facilitated by their phosphorus-mobilising neighbours, but that is only part of the story. Importantly, Proteaceae that are very effective at acquiring phosphorus are also very susceptible to native oomycetes. Their mycorrhizal neighbours may not be very effective at getting P based on their mycorrhizal associations, but the mycorrhizal fungi boost their defence, and hence these oomycetes allow the coexistence of mycorrhizal and non-mycorrhizal species”. This finding was captured in a highly-cited Marschner Review highlighted earlier in this editorial (Lambers et al. 2018). The sign of a truly universally applicable theory is when it can be validated in very different ecosystems. Hans did this when this finding was validated in similarly phosphorus-impoverished system in Brazil, “what was particularly exciting was that we found that the carboxylate-releasing strategies are dominant on the poorest soils, but that their role there is not played by Proteaceae, but by species belonging to a range of other families” (Abrahão et al. 2014; Zemunik et al. 2018).

The understanding of the role and ecology of the carboxylate-releasing strategy has also led to development of screening tools that have been used by many to assess rhizosphere exudates without having to dig up a plant. Hans says, “I gradually realised that the carboxylate-releasing strategy was far more important than I had even dared to believe at the very beginning. To quantify that, we proposed a tool to screen for species with carboxylate-releasing strategies and the leaf [Mn] approach has become an important screening tool for us, both in ecological studies and in screening crop genotypes” (Lambers et al. 2015, 2021; Pang et al. 2018; White and Neugebauer 2021; Zhou et al. 2022). The approach has been used in ecosystems across the world, not least in China (Tian et al. 2021; Yu et al. 2020; Zhou et al. 2021). In a review in the forthcoming Special Issue, Hans continues to use this approach to provide insight on plant phosphorus-acquisition strategies in a broad context (Lambers et al. 2022). While the importance of carboxylates in the rhizosphere for improving inorganic phosphorus availability has been known for many years, innovative work has shown its importance in the availability of a range of other nutrients and beneficial elements including Mn and Si (de Tombeur et al. 2021; Lambers 2022) and this is further explored in the review by Lambers et al. (2022) in this special issue. The importance and variety of roles of carboxylates has developed greatly in the last 30 years alongside that of plant soil interactions in general. What next for these important exudate components, how important are they for communication/priming of rhizosphere microorganisms and do they have a role in breaking the conundrum that is increasing the availability of nutrients at the same time as sequestering carbon in soils? Hans gives us his perspective for the future “Whilst it is definitely true that carboxylate-releasing strategies are more widespread than generally thought, we have to be careful not to establish another dogma and claim they invariably function like in Proteaceae and Fabaceae. In some species, carboxylates may well be released as a way to dispose of surplus carbon” (Prescott et al. 2020; Prescott 2022).

We think it is apt to end this Editorial with a quote from Hans which encapsulates his approach to science and publishing and hope this is an inspiration to those starting their careers now at this important time in plant-soil interactions. “Looking back, I can think of at least two occasions where it took me a long time in my work on plant-soil interactions to put two and two together. In my defence, no one else had worked out that the sum was four at that time. Sometimes, an unexpected result makes you go back to the drawing board and take your blinkers off. Sometimes it takes a critical comment from a close colleague to galvanise you into action. You sharpen your arguments to deal with that constructive criticism of your colleague. It is obviously very important to make progress to expose yourself to such critical colleagues and always keep an open mind and not be too dogmatic. If only we had the wisdom of hindsight when we started!”.

If you want to learn more about Hans’s perspective on science, publishing and the future direction of Plant and Soil, then please follow the link to hear an interview with Hans to commemorate his 30 years as editor Hans Lambers Interview. Otherwise, please enjoy this collection of 44 papers that were either commissioned, invited or offered by a range of Hans Lambers’ colleagues, co-authors, students and those generally inspired by him which add to the breadth and depth of research so thoughtfully amalgamated into the volumes of Plant and Soil over the last 30 years.