Efficacy of Plant Materials in Controlling Aphids on Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus L. Moench) in Limpopo Province of South Africa
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
First of all I think this paper worth publishing after review.
Several methodological issues needs to be explained a bit more exactly.
- How plots with different treatments were isolated from each other?
- Aphids abundance assessment by visual scanning and rating seams a bit out of scientific assessment. A simple picture made and counting from a PC using picture would be more exact. I don’t understand how the mortality rate were then assessed, so the effect or each extract and insecticides has to be explained or reevaluated.
- What was the post-hock test used for data analyses
- Results has to be presented more clear, treatments and control were different from each other at 95% level are given. But several treatments were used, so please explain exactly what the results are.
Author Response
Thank you for the comments. Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This is overall a well written and carefully documented study which is of value for future farming strategies.In the introduction lines 36-48 it does not harm to mention studies in biological pest control using infected pests and/or pest enemies:
*Lundström, Niklas LP, Hong Zhang, and Åke Brännström. "Pareto-efficient biological pest control enable high efficacy at small costs." Ecological Modelling 364 (2017): 89-97.
*Cardoso R. T. N., Cruz A. R. D., Wanner E. F. and Takahashi R. H. C. 2009. Multi-objective evolutionary optimization of biological pest control with impulsive dynamics in soybean crops. Bull. Math. Biol. 71, 1463–1481.
Author Response
Thank you for the comments. Please see attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I agree with acceptance