Buckwheat Production and Value-Added Processing: A Review of Potential Western Washington Cropping and Food System Applications
, Elizabeth Nalbandian 2,†, Tayler Reinman 1,†, Mahvash Rezaey 2,†, Girish M. Ganjyal 2 and Kevin M. Murphy 1,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
line60 - ajustar a pontuação
line 117 - I suggest: “Growing area of popular crop types by country in western Washington in 2017. Data source: [12]”
in figure 1 I don't understand why the line of the graph shows so many dots and in the legend only the dots every 40 years appear. It should be clarified since "in the first 40 years" there are 3 dots in the middle and in the second 40 years there are 5 dots. The legends should also be a bit more detailed.
line 301 – correct the celsium grade symbol
Line 310 - (figure 6) this graph is not very explicit, I can't quite understand what it represents.
Standardise the text.
In my opinion, and it is not at all an imposition, the topic of the introduction would not need subtopics, given its size.
Author Response
Reviewer #1:
“ajustar a pontuação”
Response: The style has been corrected (Line: 60)
“I suggest: “Growing area of popular crop types by country in western Washington in 2017. Data source: [12]”
Response: The caption in this figure has been updated (Line: 117)
“In figure 1 I don't understand why the line of the graph shows so many dots and in the legend only the dots every 40 years appear. It should be clarified since "in the first 40 years" there are 3 dots in the middle and in the second 40 years there are 5 dots. The legends should also be a bit more detailed.”
Response: The nature of the data sources and frequency of data availability across the two data source has been clarified in the caption for Figure 1.
“Correct the celsium grade symbol”
Response: This symbol has been corrected (Line: 301).
“(figure 6) this graph is not very explicit, I can't quite understand what it represents.”
Response: Labelling for this graph including date of last frost and caption have been updated to clarify the graphic.
“Standardise the text.”
Response: We have not made any revisions based on this comment as we don't know what portion of the text needs to be standardized.
“In my opinion, and it is not at all an imposition, the topic of the introduction would not need subtopics, given its size.”
Response: Thank you for this suggestion. We have chosen to not remove subheadings as they add clarity to the structure of the introduction which covers a broad spectrum of topics introduced in the review. We also don't believe that keeping the subheadings detract from the manuscript in any way. We will gladly defer to the discretion of the editors for the best way forward.
Reviewer 2 Report
the figures are difficult to read and need to be rearranged.
Author Response
Reviewer #2:
“the figures are difficult to read and need to be rearranged”
Response: Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We have integrated the suggested edits for figures 1 and 6. We have also updated figures 3 and 4 to be easier to interpret by adding facets to look at each county individually. We have updated figures 1-6 to standardize the overall size and text size for each figure.
Reviewer 3 Report
Greetings,
The article presents interesting information. Some modifications are necessary:
Line 37- name of the species with italic
Line 72- name of the species with italic
Line 209- N, phosphorus and potassium- please used nitrogen here and then N throughout the paper
Line 372-name of the species with italic
Line 555- there is no consensus
Line 830- year in bold
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Reviewer #3:
“name of the species with italic”
Response: The style has been corrected (Line: 37).
“name of the species with italic”
Response: The style has been corrected (Line: 72).
“N, phosphorus and potassium- please used nitrogen here and then N throughout the paper”
Response: We have not integrated this suggestion because Nitrogen (N) was previously defined in line 195 (Line: 209).
“name of the species with italic”
Response: The style has been corrected (Line: 372).
“there is no consensus”
Response: The sentence has been corrected (Line: 555).
“year in bold”
Response: The style has been corrected (Line: 830).
Reviewer 4 Report
This review considers the potential for buckwheat production and consumption in western Washington. The article does not meet the requirements of a scientific article. The aim of the study, the hypothesis, the indication of the research gap, the research methods, the authors' contributions to science are missing. Figures are too large.
Figure 1. Historical and modern records of buckwheat production in the United States. It is too large. Please make it smaller.
Figure 2. Area of popular crop types grown in counties in western Washington in 2017. It is too large. Please make it smaller.
Figure 4. Average monthly temperatures for (a) northern and (b) southern counties in western Washington. Data source https://weather.wsu.edu/ They are too large. Please make them smaller. They will not fit on one page.
Figure 5. Cumulative number of dates at western Washington weather stations where the high temperature on record exceeded 30 â—‹C. It is too large. Please make it smaller.
Figure 6. Last frost dates at weather stations in western Washington. Only stations with frost data from 2018-2021 are shown. It is too large. Please make it smaller.
Figure 3. Average monthly precipitation in northern and southern counties in western Washington (page 12. Tt is too large. Please make it smaller. There is incorrect numbering here.
Author Response
Reviewer #4:
“This review considers the potential for buckwheat production and consumption in western Washington. The article does not meet the requirements of a scientific article. The aim of the study, the hypothesis, the indication of the research gap, the research methods, the authors' contributions to science are missing. Figures are too large.”
Response: Thank you very much for bringing this to our attention. As this is a review paper, we believe that some of the comments above do not apply to this paper type. We have not included hypotheses or methods because this is not original research. We would like to kindly clarify that the aim of the literature review is provided in line #41-42. Additionally, the research and practice gaps identified in the paper are detailed in the conclusion beginning on line #733. To address the reviewer’s concerns about figure size, we have updated figures 1-6 to standardize the overall size and text size for each figure.
“Figure 1. Historical and modern records of buckwheat production in the United States. It is too large. Please make it smaller.”
Response: We have updated figures 1-6 to standardize the overall size and text size for each figure.
Figure 2. Area of popular crop types grown in counties in western Washington in 2017. It is too large. Please make it smaller.
Response: We have updated figures 1-6 to standardize the overall size and text size for each figure.
Figure 4. Average monthly temperatures for (a) northern and (b) southern counties in western Washington. Data source https://weather.wsu.edu/ They are too large. Please make them smaller. They will not fit on one page.
Response: We have updated figures 1-6 to standardize the overall size and text size for each figure.
Figure 5. Cumulative number of dates at western Washington weather stations where the high temperature on record exceeded 30 â—‹C. It is too large. Please make it smaller.
Response: We have updated figures 1-6 to standardize the overall size and text size for each figure.
Figure 6. Last frost dates at weather stations in western Washington. Only stations with frost data from 2018-2021 are shown. It is too large. Please make it smaller.
Response: We have updated figures 1-6 to standardize the overall size and text size for each figure.
Figure 3. Average monthly precipitation in northern and southern counties in western Washington (page 12. Tt is too large. Please make it smaller. There is incorrect numbering here.
Response: We have updated figures 1-6 to standardize the overall size and text size for each figure.
Round 2
Reviewer 4 Report
The article has been corrected in accordance with the reviewers' comments.
