Optimization of Germination Inhibitors Elimination from Sugar Beet (Beta vulgaris L.) Seeds of Different Maturity Classes
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I honestly have big doubts about the novelties that the authors present in the article. It seems to me that issues related to the effects of maturation, washing, stirring time, temperature, etc. on seed germination are known. This is also evidenced by the literature which the authors used when preparing the manuscript (the literature is quite old from years 1989, 1987, 1949, 1976 ect). In addition, too many keywords.
Page 4 line 138-140. This fragment is a repetition of the aim of the work and it is redundant.
Page 7 line 228. The sentence should be complete “Interesting comparisons can be drawn between these results and….”
Page 7 line 238-239. In this sentence appears “2d”. What means “2d”? Please check and write correct form.References should be prepare according to instruction for journal.Literature is quite old.
Author Response
I honestly have big doubts about the novelties that the authors present in the article. It seems to me that issues related to the effects of maturation, washing, stirring time, temperature, etc. on seed germination are known. This is also evidenced by the literature which the authors used when preparing the manuscript (the literature is quite old from years 1989, 1987, 1949, 1976 ect). In addition, too many keywords.
Authors: It is correct that there are other studies about washing treatments in sugar beet seeds, however, they do not provide information regarding the difference in the level of germination inhibitors in seeds of distinct maturity classes. We believe this is now relevant as the harvested seed lot is a mix of different maturity classes in this in-determinant species and as chlorophyll fluorescence sorters are available.
Page 4 line 138-140. This fragment is a repetition of the aim of the work and it is redundant.
Authors: These lines have been deleted.
Page 7 line 228. The sentence should be complete “Interesting comparisons can be drawn between these results and….”
Authors: Yes, something went wrong here. The sentence is now completed and reads "Interesting comparisons can be drawn between these results where seeds from two harvest times are studied and results from the current experiment with five maturity classes".
Page 7 line 238-239. In this sentence appears “2d”. What means “2d”? Please check and write correct form.
Authors: It is now changed to "2 days"
References should be prepare according to instruction for journal.
Authors: The editorial office already made this formatting.
Literature is quite old.
Reviewer 2 Report
This is a neet well written manuscript that adds a interesting information about levels of seed washing, the methods and results need a little improvement.
Ln 130-1 - You may mean additive model not addictive additive, I think describing it as an additive model confuses it with a GAM which you need a library to do? I think you mean a linear model without interactions eg lm(x ~ y + r + k) - if so tightening up the text a little will make it more understandable.
Ln 128 - I think the drying method needs more info particularly the size of subsample taken.
Table 1 & 2 and figure 1 & 5 have no standard deviation or standard error recorded, I think it is of the utmost importance to add these to make the reliability of the results clear.
While the Mixed maturity sample has an n of 4 [100 seeds divided into four sets of 25], I was not clear on the number of seeds used in the Distinct maturity classes experiment.
Minor points:
Ln 51 - just the grammar of the sentence, maybe since the early 1940s.
LN 61 - one other method would be nice, just to see why it was chosen over the others.
The 3d style points on figures 1 & 5 distract from the content of the graph, while this is style I would suggest a flat colour on the dots.
Figure 2: are these seed representative / how much variation is there between seed from the same batch?
Ln 131 - MGT needs to be defined as mean germination time the first time it is used.
As a suggestion - Figure 1 has little complex information and could be a table, while table 1 may be more impactful as a figure.
Author Response
This is a neet well written manuscript that adds a interesting information about levels of seed washing, the methods and results need a little improvement.
Ln 130-1 - You may mean additive model not addictive additive, I think describing it as an additive model confuses it with a GAM which you need a library to do? I think you mean a linear model without interactions eg lm(x ~ y + r + k) - if so tightening up the text a little will make it more understandable.
Authors: This part has been revised according to reviewers suggestions.
Ln 128 - I think the drying method needs more info particularly the size of subsample taken.
Authors: There was no sub-sample. All the washed and dried seeds were used in one go. Information included in text.
Table 1 & 2 and figure 1 & 5 have no standard deviation or standard error recorded, I think it is of the utmost importance to add these to make the reliability of the results clear.
Authors: Standard deviation has been included in these tables.
While the Mixed maturity sample has an n of 4 [100 seeds divided into four sets of 25], I was not clear on the number of seeds used in the Distinct maturity classes experiment.
Authors: for the distinct maturity classes n was also 4 - now included in text.
Minor points:
Ln 51 - just the grammar of the sentence, maybe since the early 1940s.
Authors: Revised according to suggestion.
LN 61 - one other method would be nice, just to see why it was chosen over the others.
Authors: Two other methods mentioned.
The 3d style points on figures 1 & 5 distract from the content of the graph, while this is style I would suggest a flat colour on the dots.
Authors: We are not so sure, we understand this comment. As this concerns the format of figures, we may leave this suggestion for the publishing team.
Figure 2: are these seed representative / how much variation is there between seed from the same batch?
Authors: These seeds are representative from the five distinct maturity classes.
Ln 131 - MGT needs to be defined as mean germination time the first time it is used.
Authors: This has now been revised.
As a suggestion - Figure 1 has little complex information and could be a table, while table 1 may be more impactful as a figure.
Authors: As for the above comment, we may leave this suggestion for the publishing team.
Reviewer 3 Report
authors demonstrated great technical qualification when applied different methods and gained abundant data. unfortunately, there is no originality/novelty in this assessment.
technical and statistical performance of the data has done nice. nonetheless, the aim and methods need some improvement, see remarks in the text. it is unclear why the seed soaking the authors called as washing. methodically it is incorrect as it also named soaking references (30).
therefore paper need improvement of methods as well as offer of practical application of the research data.
Some detailed comments
30,303 ln –it is better to use "precursors" instead ‘primary chemicals’
90ln – please indicate seed producer, place and germination (%), seed class
93-94ln- absolutely unclear method to the select seeds of different maturity. moreover, that commercially standardized seed lot was obtained. besides, it is unclear how do you use fluorescence for the classification. the experiment and it's results can't be valid without these explanations
98ln- so long process is soaking as referred in 30 reference (see 222 ln). please explain, why do you name 'washing' especially when the seed moisture was recorded?
104ln-please explain what means blue paper; why it has chosen
120ln-please explain after what experiment?
121ln-please indicate cuvette parameters
122ln- why did you choice this spectral length when the chlorophyll fluorescence was mentioned before and other absorbance interval indicated in 290ln?
Eq.1 - %M - incorrect, must be improved in right way
127ln- M abbreviation must be explained just after first mention; please explain the meaning of average moisture; how do you get it?
130-131 ln-1m()function – unclear; MGT - please explain the meaning
138-141ln – these ln must be cut as it mentioned in Methods
217-221ln- transfer to Introduction
307ln-please specify in which ‘field’
References must correspond to requirements of the Journal .
Author Response
Authors demonstrated great technical qualification when applied different methods and gained abundant data. unfortunately, there is no originality/novelty in this assessment.
Authors: It is correct that there are other studies about washing treatments in sugar beet seeds, however, they do not provide information regarding the difference in the level of germination inhibitors in seeds of distinct maturity classes. We believe this is now relevant as the harvested seed lot is a mix of different maturity classes in this in-determinant species and as chlorophyll fluorescence sorters are available.
Some detailed comments
30,303 ln –it is better to use "precursors" instead ‘primary chemicals’
Authors: This has now been inserted.
90ln – please indicate seed producer, place and germination (%), seed class
Authors: We have included germination percentage, - we were not sure, what is meant by seed class.
93-94ln- absolutely unclear method to the select seeds of different maturity. moreover, that commercially standardized seed lot was obtained. besides, it is unclear how do you use fluorescence for the classification. the experiment and it's results can't be valid without these explanations
Authors: We have provided more details about these procedures.
98ln- so long process is soaking as referred in 30 reference (see 222 ln). please explain, why do you name 'washing' especially when the seed moisture was recorded?
Authors: Yes, we are aware that this proces are named "soaking" in some references, but we have followed the terminology of ISTA. According to the ISTA rules section 5.6.3.3 procedures for removing inhibitory substances is called ”Prewashing” and in the description “washing” is mentioned: “Naturally occurring substances in the pericarp or seed coat which act as inhibitors of germination may be removed by washing the seeds in running water at a temperature of 25 ±2 °C before the germination test is made”.
104ln-please explain what means blue paper; why it has chosen
Authors: Information included.
120ln-please explain after what experiment?
Authors: Information now included.
121ln-please indicate cuvette parameters
Authors: Information given.
122ln- why did you choice this spectral length when the chlorophyll fluorescence was mentioned before and other absorbance interval indicated in 290ln?
Authors: The full spectrum of seed steeping solution was extracted from 220 nm to 600 nm. From this spectrum, 260 nm which chosen to have a closer look at the class differences. In the similar study about washing solution of sugar beet the range of 250-270 was presented as the character of this specific type of phenolic compounds (Duan and Burris, 1997). Therefore, we used the median wavelength as representative.
Eq.1 - %M - incorrect, must be improved in right way
Authors: Corrected.
127ln- M abbreviation must be explained just after first mention; please explain the meaning of average moisture; how do you get it?
Authors: M is explained and also the moisture content. In fact it was a mistake to write "average" in the manuscript.
130-131 ln-1m()function – unclear; MGT - please explain the meaning
Authors: This is now described in more detail.
138-141ln – these ln must be cut as it mentioned in Methods
Authors: This is now described in more detail.
217-221ln- transfer to Introduction
Authors: We have kept this as we think this is a kind of introduction to the discussion section, - kind of recap of the references.
307ln-please specify in which ‘field’
Authors: We have changed the wording.
References must correspond to requirements of the Journal .
Authors: The editorial office already made this formatting.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I still have doubts about the nowelty of this research.
But the authors' explanations and the supplemented /
corrected manuscript look much better in this version than before.
Reviewer 3 Report
accept
