Fastest-accepting plant science journals 2026

59 plant science journals ranked by the median number of days from submission to acceptance, measured from the dates publishers deposit in PubMed for articles published 2024–2025. The interval includes peer review and revisions.

Journals: 59
Typical median: 111 d
Under 60 days: 3
Over 180 days: 1

Read this before using the ranking

Accepted papers only. Rejected manuscripts never receive an acceptance date, so these figures say nothing about desk-rejection speed, rejection rates or your chance of acceptance.
Not the time to a first decision. The interval runs from the “received” date to the “accepted” date the publisher deposits in PubMed. It includes editorial handling, peer review, every round of revision and the time authors spent revising.
Journals record dates differently. Some reset the received date when a revised manuscript arrives, and manuscripts transferred from another journal may keep or lose their earlier dates. Short medians are therefore not always comparable with long ones.
Past timelines are not a promise. Each figure comes from up to 100 recent articles published 2024–2025. Article types, special issues, editors and workload all change, and your paper may take much longer or much less time.
Fast is not the same as good. Check the journal’s scope, indexing, peer-review policy and editorial board before submitting. An unusually quick acceptance can be a warning sign of light peer review.

Journal Metrics is independent and is not affiliated with any journal or publisher listed. The figures are for information only, may contain errors and change as PubMed records are updated. Confirm current timelines on the journal’s own website. See how to spot predatory journals.

Plant Science journals by median days from submission to acceptance

Plant Science journals ranked by median days from submission to acceptance in PubMed
Rank	Journal	Median days	Middle half	Articles	Quartile	2026 score
1	Plants-Basel	35	27–46	100	Q1	4.7
2	INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR SCIENCES	36	28–52	100	Q1	6.3
3	Cell Surface	51	35–68	44	Q1	5.6
4	Frontiers in Fungal Biology	69	52–101	84	Q2	3.1
5	Vavilovskii Zhurnal Genetiki i Selektsii	70	48–98	100	Q3	0.9
5	Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine	70	50–100	100	Q1	6.0
5	Plant Pathology Journal	70	44–104	99	Q2	2.5
8	JOURNAL OF PLANT PHYSIOLOGY	71	54–86	100	Q1	4.0
9	HEREDITAS	77	51–106	99	Q2	1.7
9	Frontiers in Plant Science	77	60–108	100	Q1	5.2
11	PLANT CELL	78	13–118	91	Q1	10.5
12	CURRENT OPINION IN PLANT BIOLOGY	82	61–110	100	Q1	6.3
13	JOURNAL OF ETHNOPHARMACOLOGY	85	59–126	99	Q1	5.2
14	MICROBIOLOGICAL RESEARCH	86	61–125	100	Q1	8.6
15	FUNCTIONAL & INTEGRATIVE GENOMICS	88	64–114	100	Q1	3.4
16	TRENDS IN PLANT SCIENCE	94	49–148	100	Q1	7.7
17	PLANT SCIENCE	95	74–132	100	Q1	3.7
17	Plant Methods	95	71–135	100	Q1	6.4
19	Journal of Genetics and Genomics	96	72–130	100	Q1	4.4
19	Stress Biology	96	59–139	100	Q1	7.0
19	TURKISH JOURNAL OF BIOLOGY	96	77–148	99	Q2	2.8
22	PHOTOSYNTHETICA	97	67–144	71	Q2	2.3
23	Rice	98	71–136	100	Q1	5.1
24	PLANT PHYSIOLOGY AND BIOCHEMISTRY	102	71–149	99	Q1	5.5
24	BMC PLANT BIOLOGY	102	75–157	100	Q1	4.6
26	PLANTA	104	69–150	100	Q1	4.5
27	PLANT AND SOIL	105	63–154	29	Q1	3.5
28	PLANT BIOLOGY	107	57–165	100	Q1	2.8
29	PHYSIOLOGIA PLANTARUM	110	83–146	100	Q1	4.3
30	Molecular Horticulture	111	81–172	80	Q1	5.8
31	Plant	112	75–149	100	Q2	1.7
31	BREEDING SCIENCE	112	75–156	92	Q3	1.6
33	aBIOTECH	114	85–137	98	Q1	5.6
34	Molecular Plant	116	33–176	100	Q1	10.5
35	MOLECULAR PLANT PATHOLOGY	118	89–150	100	Q1	3.8
36	STUDIES IN MYCOLOGY	119	87–163	25	Q1	7.3
37	Fungal Biology	120	81–160	99	Q2	2.6
38	NEW PHYTOLOGIST	121	91–158	94	Q1	7.3
38	MOLECULAR BREEDING	121	78–167	100	Q2	2.9
38	PLANT AND CELL PHYSIOLOGY	121	86–195	100	Q1	3.8
41	Mycotoxin Research	122	96–168	100	Q1	3.7
42	DNA RESEARCH	126	76–165	73	Q2	2.3
43	Plant Genome	132	88–183	99	Q1	3.6
43	THEORETICAL AND APPLIED GENETICS	132	88–198	100	Q1	3.8
45	PLANT PHYSIOLOGY	133	63–175	99	Q1	5.9
46	BMC GENOMICS	135	93–185	100	Q1	4.2
46	PLANT JOURNAL	135	107–190	96	Q1	5.3
48	Quantitative Plant Biology	140	113–198	58	Q1	3.5
49	FUNCTIONAL PLANT BIOLOGY	141	96–198	99	Q1	3.2
50	MOLECULAR GENETICS AND GENOMICS	144	94–238	99	Q2	1.9
51	JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL BOTANY	147	91–186	92	Q1	5.8
52	Environmental Microbiome	153	120–205	100	Q1	6.1
53	PLANT CELL AND ENVIRONMENT	155	112–207	100	Q1	6.2
53	Plant Direct	155	100–226	100	Q2	2.3
55	Plant Communications	157	117–211	100	Q1	8.6
56	PHYSIOLOGY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY OF PLANTS	170	112–230	100	Q1	3.9
57	JOURNAL OF APPLIED GENETICS	171	109–237	100	Q2	2.1
58	Biologia Futura	174	123–247	99	Q2	2.7
59	Nature Plants	248	178–331	63	Q1	9.9

Median days: half of the journal’s accepted articles took less time from submission to acceptance and half took more. Middle half: the 25th to 75th percentile. Articles: how many recent PubMed articles had both dates. Journals with the same rounded median share a rank.

Median under 30 days. Very short intervals usually reflect how a journal records its dates (for example a new received date after revision) or invited and fast-track article types such as reviews and editorials, not unusually quick peer review. Check the journal’s peer-review policy before reading anything into them.

Questions about plant science journal acceptance times

Which plant science journals accept papers fastest?

Among the 59 plant science journals with enough PubMed dates, the shortest median times from submission to acceptance (leaving out medians under 30 days, which usually reflect how dates are recorded) are Plants-Basel (35 days), INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR SCIENCES (36 days), Cell Surface (51 days), Frontiers in Fungal Biology (69 days), Vavilovskii Zhurnal Genetiki i Selektsii (70 days). These medians include peer review and revisions, and cover accepted papers only.

How long does a plant science journal take to accept a paper?

The typical plant science journal on this page has a median of 111 days from submission to acceptance. 3 of 59 journals have a median under 60 days and 1 take more than 180 days.

Is this the peer review time?

No. PubMed records when a manuscript was received and when it was accepted, not the individual review stages. The interval includes editorial handling, peer review, revisions and the time authors spent revising, so it is longer than the time to a first decision. For first-decision times, check the journal’s own website.

Does a fast journal mean my paper is more likely to be accepted?

No. Only accepted papers have an acceptance date, so this ranking says nothing about acceptance rates or how quickly a journal rejects papers. A very fast acceptance can also be a sign of light peer review. Check the journal’s scope, indexing and peer-review policy before submitting.

About this data

Source: the received and accepted dates publishers deposit in PubMed, read through the public NCBI E-utilities for articles published 2024-01-01 to 2025-12-31, up to 100 recent articles per journal. Data checked 2026-11-03.
A journal is ranked only when at least 20 articles have both dates and at least half of the articles checked have them. Journals that do not deposit dates in PubMed, including most journals outside the life sciences, cannot be ranked here.
The ranking uses each journal’s median: half of its accepted articles took less time and half took more. The middle-half range shows the 25th to 75th percentile.
Fields come from the OpenAlex classification of each journal’s research topics. A journal joins a field when at least two of its four main topics are in it, so a journal can appear in more than one field and some classifications are imperfect.
Quartile and score are the journal’s best OpenAlex subfield quartile and its Journal Metrics Score, shown for context; they play no part in the order.

The full journal-level dataset is in the journal acceptance times study (with a CSV download). Spot an error or a journal whose dates look wrong? Tell us.

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