Knowledge mapping of opuntia milpa alta since 1998: A scientometric analysis

Abstract

Opuntia Milpa Alta is a cactus cultivated, domesticated, hybridized and selected from the plant Opuntia ficus-indica by Mexican agricultural experts, which can be used as fruit and vegetable. Opuntia Milpa Alta leaves and fruit are superior to wild varieties and suitable for storage and transportation. In 1998, Opuntia Milpa Alta was introduced to China from Mexico by the Quality Product Development Center of the Ministry of Agriculture of China. Up to now, the Opuntia Milpa Alta has been cultivated on a certain scale in China. This study aims to identify the research progress and development trends of Opuntia Milpa Alta in China. Papers published between 1998 to 2019 from two major Chinese academic databases (CNKI and Wangfang) with a topic search related to Opuntia Milpa Alta were collected. The research progress and development trends were analyzed based on Cite-Space software of text mining and visualization. The analysis found that Opuntia Milpa Alta has gone through three obvious research phases after being introduced to China. In the first phase, the researchers paid attention to its cultivation method. Subsequently, researchers began to use extraction methods to extract some of its com-ponents, such as polysaccharides and flavonoids. Finally, these extracted ingredients began to be used in some biomedical research.