Is Frontiers in Plant Science a Good Journal? OA Plant Biology, Assessed

Does Q1 ranking mean it's a top plant journal?

Q1 in Plant Sciences means it's in the top 25% of plant journals by IF. But Q1 is a broad category. Plant Cell (IF 10.0) and Frontiers in Plant Science (IF 4.8) are both Q1, but they occupy very different positions in the field. Don't treat Q1 as a homogeneous prestige tier.

Will a Frontiers paper count for tenure?

In most plant science departments, yes, it counts as a legitimate peer-reviewed publication. At research-intensive institutions where per-paper prestige is weighed heavily, Frontiers papers carry less weight than Plant Cell, New Phytologist, or Plant Physiology papers. Know your institutional context.

How does the collaborative review process work in practice?

After initial editorial screening, papers go to two reviewers who interact with authors through an online forum. Reviewers are named upon publication. The process tends to be faster and less adversarial than traditional journals. Most rejections happen at the editorial screen, not after review.

Are there better free-to-publish alternatives?

Plant Physiology and Plant Cell are both free for authors publishing under the subscription model. If your paper fits either scope, those are financially superior options with stronger field prestige. The Journal of Experimental Botany also offers competitive rates and strong plant biology coverage.

Before submitting, a Frontiers in Plant Science section and tier check can help you decide whether this is the right venue or whether a more selective plant journal is realistic.

Frontiers in Plant Science desk-rejects papers where the section selection is wrong, the controls are underpowered, or the framing speaks to a general biology audience rather than the plant science community. A Frontiers in Plant Science submission readiness check identifies which of these gaps apply before you submit to a journal where section choice is the single highest-leverage pre-submission decision.

In our pre-submission review work with manuscripts targeting Frontiers in Plant Science, three patterns generate the most consistent desk rejections among the papers we analyze.

Section mismatch that sends the paper to topic editors outside its subspecialty. Frontiers in Plant Science is organized into over 40 sections, each with dedicated topic editors and distinct review expectations. We observe a consistent failure where authors select "Plant Physiology" for a paper that is primarily about molecular mechanisms, or "Plant Biotechnology" for work that is really functional genomics. The section editors have domain expertise and quickly identify manuscripts positioned for the wrong subspecialty audience. The collaborative review model makes this mismatch visible early: the handling editor and reviewers are named, and a paper in the wrong section reaches reviewers who may not engage fully with its contributions. Selecting the correct section (including reviewing recent accepted papers in that section) is the single highest-leverage pre-submission decision.

Soundness bar treated as a lower standard than traditional peer review. The Frontiers collaborative review model is sometimes misread as less rigorous than traditional double-blind review. We see papers submitted with incomplete controls, n=2 biological replicates, or missing statistical tests because authors assume the soundness-based model accepts all technically correct work. Frontiers reviewers can reject at the post-review editorial stage if the science does not meet field standards. Papers with under-powered experiments or missing statistical justification are rejected at rates that surprise authors expecting a more permissive process.

APC-driven submission without genuine audience fit. Frontiers in Plant Science draws submissions from researchers whose primary motivation is fast, open-access publication rather than reaching the plant science audience specifically. We see this in papers where the introduction and discussion cite predominantly papers from outside plant biology, or where the applied conclusions do not connect to plant science research community concerns. Reviewers notice when a paper is positioned for a general biology audience that happens to involve a plant system. Frontiers in Plant Science publishes plant science, not general biology where the organism is a plant.

SciRev author-reported data confirms Frontiers in Plant Science's 8-12 week median to first decision. A Frontiers in Plant Science section fit check can assess whether your section choice, experimental rigor, and plant science audience positioning will survive the collaborative review process before you submit.