Characterization of Cashew Nut (Anacardium occidentale L.) Germplasm for Kernel Quality Attributes

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Ana Cecília R. de Castro and her colleagues aim to screen cashew nut germplasm for kernel quality standards and agroindustrial purposes. This brief report Brief provide potential cashew nut germplasms for developing best cashew nut varieties for agro-industrial uses. The submitted manuscript is written clearly and general interest to the readers.  I suggest to accept the manuscript for publication after minor revision.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

1．  Long sentences (Material and methods part, Page2, L29-32) should be broken into short sentences to increase the readability of the article.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Please see the attachment." in the box if you only upload an attachment.

Best wishes, Ana

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The study on characterizing cashew nut accessions and identifying genotypes with optimal industrial characteristics is valuable. However, there are some limitations which must be addressed.

The number of accessions evaluated in the study may be relatively small, limiting the representativeness of the findings. A larger sample size would provide a more comprehensive understanding of the variability within the cashew nut germplasm.

Provide main results of the study in the abstract. Also methods are not clearly provided in the abstract.

The study primarily focuses on quality indicators relevant to the cashew industry, such as peeling efficiency, kernel mass, class, type, and industrial yield. While these indicators are important for the industry, other quality attributes, such as nutritional composition or flavor profile, which may be relevant to consumers, are not considered.

The study does not include sensory evaluation, which could provide valuable insights into the taste, texture, and overall sensory characteristics of the cashew kernels. Sensory evaluation could provide a more comprehensive assessment of the desirability of different genotypes for consumers.

How accessions were confirmed and identified?

Provide abbreviations of the terms such as UPGMA

Conclusion looks like summary, specific gaps and future directions should be discussed in conclusion.

“The results of the correlation matrix suggest” discuss and compare with other related studies.

The study focuses on characterizing accessions from the Cashew Germplasm Bank, which may not encompass the full genetic diversity of cashew nut genotypes worldwide. Therefore, the findings may not be generalizable to all cashew genotypes. Should be mention in discussion or conclusion.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Provide abbreviations detail at first use. 

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses highlighted in the attached file,

Best wishes, Ana

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

My comments are as follow:

The main question of the research was “to characterize 47 accessions of the cashew germplasm bank (BAG-Cashew) for cashew kernel quality requirements and identify genotypes with the best characteristics for the agroindustry”.

Additionally, in my point of view, the specific gap in the field is the “characterization of 47 accessions of the cashew germplasm bank”.

 

If the authors of this document, have the possibility of improving the experimental design, as well as the analysis of other dependent variables, that would greatly expand the information proposed in this manuscript.

·         The abstract section needs to be improved, specially at the end, with more accurate information about the conclusion of your research.

·         In the Keywords section, you are reiterating similar words than in the title of your brief report. Please, change them.

·         In the Statistical Analysis section, what software did you apply for the PCA exactly? Please, indicate it in your brief report.

·         In the Results and Discussion section, for the PCA, please, provide more information about the Communalities and Unique principal component (PC). Moreover, what about the variability explained for each PC? Please, include all this information in your brief report.

·         The conclusion section looks like “another summary”, please modify it accordingly.

 

·         Moreover, in the conclusion section, I suggest to redact this section in one or two paragraphs.

Figure 2, need to be improved. It is too basic the principal component analysis results. Moreover, I suggest to include a bi-plot analysis, which can be done applying a code in R or R-Studio.

 

 

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses highlighted in the attached file,

Best wishes, Ana

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Accept in present form

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Accepted in present form.