Durum Wheat (Triticum durum Desf.): Origin, Cultivation and Potential Expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa
, Maarten van Ginkel 6 and Filippo Maria Bassi 2,*
Craig F. Morris
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I enjoyed reading this review. My primary suggestion is to have someone carefully go through the text and improve the English usage. There are some (to a native speaker) strange uses.
Take as an example, line 232. I have never heard of the word “scaled” used in this manner.
Line 231, should this be 6,244 ha? (use of decimal point).
L. 267, revert? reverse?
L. 370, interesting to whom?
L. 409, ‘EUR’?
Author Response
Reviewer 1:
I enjoyed reading this review. My primary suggestion is to have someone carefully go through the text and improve the English usage. There are some (to a native speaker) strange uses.
Take as an example, line 232. I have never heard of the word “scaled” used in this manner.
Line 231, should this be 6,244 ha? (use of decimal point).
L. 267, revert? reverse?
L. 370, interesting to whom?
L. 409, ‘EUR’?
Authors’ comments to Reviewer 1:
Thank you very much, we have appreciated your comments:
1. All specific examples were corrected
2. We have used a professional English editor to revise the article and we hope this new version will better meet adequate language standards
Reviewer 2 Report
The review article "Durum wheat origin, cultivation, and potential expansion in sub-Saharan Africa" presents a quite interesting study about the past and present situation of this crop in this particular African region. This article is of interest for all the wheat research community.
In my opinion, the manuscript is well structured and written, and the study is very well documented, in spite of that in some countries the access to information could have been limited. The authors have make a great effort to get as much information as possible to support the article, the amount of data presented here is huge.
The detailed description of the Oromia case as a successful approach on integration of the whole durum wheat value chain clearly support that this can be applied to other sub-Saharan Africa regions. After reading the article, it seems clear that the endorse of local industry by national durum cultivation would have a great impact in food security and poverty reduction.
The only minor aspect that I would suggest to improve before complete acceptation, is the presentation of tables and figures. In table 1, the values referred to regions (Eastern, central...) should be underlined or bold to make a difference from the values related to countries. Resolution of figure 2 should be improved, and pictures in figure 3 should be placed side by side and labeled as a and b.
Author Response
Reviewer 2:
The review article "Durum wheat origin, cultivation, and potential expansion in sub-Saharan Africa" presents a quite interesting study about the past and present situation of this crop in this particular African region. This article is of interest for all the wheat research community.
In my opinion, the manuscript is well structured and written, and the study is very well documented, in spite of that in some countries the access to information could have been limited. The authors have make a great effort to get as much information as possible to support the article, the amount of data presented here is huge.
The detailed description of the Oromia case as a successful approach on integration of the whole durum wheat value chain clearly support that this can be applied to other sub-Saharan Africa regions. After reading the article, it seems clear that the endorse of local industry by national durum cultivation would have a great impact in food security and poverty reduction.
The only minor aspect that I would suggest to improve before complete acceptation, is the presentation of tables and figures. In table 1, the values referred to regions (Eastern, central...) should be underlined or bold to make a difference from the values related to countries. Resolution of figure 2 should be improved, and pictures in figure 3 should be placed side by side and labeled as a and b.
Authors, comments to Reviewer 2:
Thank you for the comments and corrections. Indeed, gathering the information has been the most challenging part of this review.
Table 1 has been modified and improved as suggested
Figure 2 has been re-made to improve both resolution and clarity
Figure 3 the letters “a” and “b” have been included.
