Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) Spectroscopy and Simple Algorithm Analysis for Rapid and Non-Destructive Assessment of Cotton Fiber Maturity and Crystallinity for Plant Mapping

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper sensors-2952089 describes the possible usage of FTIR spectroscopy and algorithm analysis for the assessment of cotton fiber maturity and crystallinity for plant mapping. In my opinion the manuscript is well structured and the research topic is interesting and may be published after revision considering the following observations:

1. In the introduction give the MIR  and CIR calculation formula. indicate the originality of the paper.

At line 74 it is stated that MIR and CIR are highly correlated with MIC and M values but R2 it is small. please check

2. The band intensity by which method was calculated? it is the absolute or relative intensity? please specify.

3. Data in the Figures 5 b, c, 7, 8 b, d by which functions were fitted? why?

In the Fig 8a and 8c a second order polynomial was used. linear or exponential regression was checked?

4. at Methods section describe the algorithm used, it is not clear how excel program was used.

5. Compare your results with other data. Cellulose crystalinity is also obtained by XRD.

6. in conclusions develop on the practical application of your research.

English language usage is fine.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

General comment

The paper is not well structured and the reported information is quite disordered and fuzzy. The potential novelties of the present work are not well delineated, the aim is not captivating and not clearly defined. Some sentences seem to be quickly and poorly written, thus further weakening the manuscript workflow and comprehension. Many elaborations performed and discussed in the Results section do not have their corresponding part in Materials and Methods section, where they should be carefully described by providing the reader with all the needed procedure details. For all these reasons, I do not consider the present manuscript eligible for publication.

Below you can find some point-by-point comments that I hope can be useful to the authors towards rearranging the paper and improving its overall quality. Thank you.

Lines 90-92: It is not so clear why just 3 out of 368 plants were selected. Moreover, which were the main differences between these 3 plants? Could each of these A, B, C plant types be considered representative grouping of more plants? Please, try to provide more details about this point.

Line 100: "seed cotton mass" is the same of saying "cotton boll mass", is it right?

Section 2.3: Why was FT-IR equipped with ATR attachment? In other words, why ATR instead of simple FT-IR was performed? Which was the expected advantage in coupling ATR with IR for this work? These aspects should be better discussed.

Line 110: Please, correct "devise" with device".

Line 114: "... no ATR baseline correction was applied"... Which is the reason behind this choice?

Line 121: Which is this "average micronaire" parameter and which are its utility and importance? How was the Maturity ratio (MAFIS) determined/measured? So, "micronaire" and "MAFIS" are the Conventional Fiber Property Measurements? Please, be clearer and add some important details.

Section 2.6: Thus, ANOVA was applied using which parameters as independent factors? Which were exactly the factors and the response/es? The significance was evaluated on what and with which scope? These are just some issues raised after reading this very (too much) short 2.6 Section.

Lines 148-149: How/where can be easily detected, understood and appreciated these “1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th" positions?

Figure 1: What do the numbers reported in each of the three subplots refer to? This is not so clear in the present form.

Line 156: Which is the difference between "lint yield" and "lint percentage"? How can them be considered two different and independent parameters? Please, try to be more specific about this important point.

Line 219: what authors exactly mean by "methine"?

Lines 228-229: How the information included in ATR spectra was converted in M-IR values? What do authors mean by “the simple algorithm proposed before"?

Line 256: How (i.e., by which technique) where the "CI-IR" indices determined?

Figure 6: Too much and fuzzy information is provided. Please, try to represent only the very important information and in a clearer way.

Figure 7 and 8: what does each point represent? Why is the interpolation equation given in Figure 8 and not in Figure 7? And why just for subplots 8a and 8b and not for 8C and 8d? Why there is a so noticeable difference between the number of points in subplots a and b with respect to those present in c and d? What does the represented standard deviation values refer to?

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors present a study on the fiber maturity and crystallinity of cotton plants for assessing their adaptation and response to environmental and biotic stress. Compared with the traditional fiber measurement methods, such as HVI and AFIS, which require a large number of samples, the attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared (ATR FT-IR) spectroscopy used in this paper can be an alternative method with smaller sample sizes. Using this technique, the author showed rapid and non-destructive node-by-node mapping of cotton boll maturity and crystallinity distribution. The analyzed results have a high correlation with the traditional method. This approach could offer significant advantages in cotton research, particularly in terms of efficiency and accuracy. The paper is well written and the results are clearly presented, although there is still room for improvement in terms of the significance.

1.     The authors made a statement in line 64 that a reference published in 2017 has been highly cited 89 times. This citation number is high for research focusing on cotton fibers, but since the Sensors journal has a broader audience whose work may not be limited to cotton research, it might not be conceived as highly cited to some readers. I recommend to avoid mentioning the specific numbers. The authors can focus more on the scarcity of the existing research and what new knowledge their research can bring to the community. For example, the authors can expand on the following sentence where they stated ‘It was not explored for spatial boll distribution within a single plant.’

2.     The author mentioned at the beginning of the paper as a motivation that the FTIR technique can be useful in studying the adaptation and response to environmental and biotic stress. In addition to the response to the defoliation as has been demonstrated in the paper, are there any other parameters that have been changed in the growth of the cotton?

3.     In line 212, the authors might want to add a slash symbol in the OH bending and CH vibrations to be consistent with the forms of other vibrations in the text, like “C-H stretching”.

4.     Although the authors have mentioned that the maturity of cotton fiber was determined by the intensity ratio, they should still write out the definition they used in the paper in 3.3.2.

5.     How would this study inform us on how to improve fiber maturity and crystallinity? The authors should improve the significance and novelty of the paper so that it is not merely a presentation of the capability of FTIR.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript was revised according to the observations and may be published in Sensors.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The revised version is now ok. All the point-by-point comments have been considered as valuable by the authors and have used them as a draft to significantly improve the overall quality of the manuscript. I just have a couple of residual (minimal) comments (reported below and also in the attached pdf). Thank you. 

Concerning the comment "Figure 6", it is still not clear how the regression model, whose results are depicted in this Figure, were developed: normally, in this kind of plot we represent the "actual, or rference, values" along the x-axis and the corresponding "values predicted by the model" along the y-axis. In this case, it seems that MIR values acted as reference values which were used to predict CIR values, which is not so straightforward to understand. Therefore, I suggest adding some part of explanation and details about the development of the regression model.

Concerning the comment "Why there is a so noticeable difference between the number of points in subplots a and b with respect to those present in c and d?", I made an error in the numeration, since I actually meant "a and c vs b and d" of both Figures 7 and 8, but now is much more clear. What instead keep on not being so clear is that, when we move at Fig. 7 and 8, the information about the specific A, B, C plant is totally missed: is it because we move to a combined form? If so, is it really correct doing it, also considering that, at the reference node, we have different number of considered positions in plants A, B and C? I hope it is clear.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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