Comparative Morphological, Anatomical and Physiological Analyses Explain the Difference of Wounding-Induced Agarwood Formation between Ordinary Agarwood Nongrafted Plants and Five Grafted Qi-Nan Clones (Aquilaria sinensis)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The contribution to the knowledge is relevant and the work has several approaches.

The manuscript distinguishes “common Aquilaria sinensis (OA)” trees from “grafted clones of A. sinensis (Qi-Nan)”. The information on the origin of clones and grafts is missing. Do both parts of the graft belong to the same parental individual?

Both materials belong to the same species, but the abstract suggests different. Furthermore, the authority of the species in the work is different from that indicated by the International Index of Plant Names.

The wood anatomical method needs description and references.

The discussion needs to consider that OA is more resistant to pathogens than clones. Thus, OA produces a smaller amount of agarwood and has fewer tissues affected by pathogens introduced with the stem perforations.

Why is agarwood yield and essential oil content not directly related? See Fig. 1cd. Could you discuss this?

The discussion has a strong statement: “it is unscientific to distinguish OA and Qi-Nan simply by leaf appearance properties”. The conclusion reinforces this. Nonetheless, the leaf appearance has other properties which were not analyzed in the work, for instance, the leaf thickness and density. This conclusion refers only to the analyzed leaf parameters. I think the leaf thickness and density can be useful parameters to distinguish these plants, on the basis of the results reported in the work.

Several sentences need to improve readability.

I'm curious as to whether trees from ordinary individuals will live longer than grafted clones.

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Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript is well written and straightforward.

Nevertheless, there are 3 points that, in my opinion, should be discussed/ improved :

1. Terminology: the terms "whitewood" and "agarwood" are probably established and usual informal terms for the region where the authors worked on but I think that that they are not scientifically appropriate and should probably be replaced by "sapwood" and "heartwood" respectively. 

2. Chapter 2.1: Regarding the drilling of the trees, tt would be useful to include the pattern that was used: how many holes and where they were made.

3. Chapter 2.2: Agarwood yields were calculated based on "air-dry weight". Since air-dry weight includes moisture, can Agarwood yield results be comparable? 

 

Author Response

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