Adaptive Responses to Nitrogen and Light Supplies of a Local Varieties of Sweet Pepper from the Abruzzo Region, Southern Italy

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

To my opinion, the manuscript was correctly structured as well as the experimental work. References are correctly reported in the article body and I would suggest consulting the following “recent” works: 

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2014.10.034

https://doi.org/10.51470/PLANTARCHIVES.2021.v21.no1.030

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eja.2020.126046

The language of the section “Introduction” is poor and needs substantial editing concerning using the correct English words and should be written in a more formal style. Several treatments were tested and, to me, there is a lack of organization and clarity in the presentation of the Material and Methods and it is difficult for the reader to understand the logical flow of the experiments. So, I would suggest re-writing some of the sentences. 

Author Response

Please, see the attached file

Reviewer 2 Report

The present study investigated the effects of combine effect of nitrogen availability and shading on growth and physiological traits of a local ecotype of sweet pepper grown in Southern Italy. The authors found that low N availability (without N adding) resulted in decreased plant growth rates and the shading resulted in increased leaf area, SLA and Chl parameters. These plant responses are well-known, so my main remarks are related to the discussion of the high-quality results obtained and shown in this manuscript:

1. In the Discussion wore attention should be paid to the comparative evaluation of reactions of Altino (the results obtained in this study) and another commonly cultivated sweet pepper (from the literature) to explain to readers whether the responses of Altino to growth conditions are specific (or non-specific) for the for the species;
2. In the Discussion wore attention should be paid to discuss the simultaneous, not only separate, impact of N and PAR on plant traits.

Minor remarks:

• Line 269: It is not clear what ‘effect of the experiment’ means. The authors used only two parameters, so why the authors had to use two-way ANOWA?
• Line 288: Table 3 or Table S3?
• Line 15, 501: Use ‘morphological and physiological responses, instead of ‘… anatomical, morphological and physiological responses…’;
• Line 295-296, 328-330, 344-345, 370-371, 387-389: Don’t repeat the results in the text and in the Tables;
• For the reader it is not clear why significant differences (letters in the Table 1-4) are shown for m. in one case and for the mean values in another case. Please, clarify this situation or use uniform style;
• Line 362: ‘per plant’ or per shoot (upperground part of plant)? Justify this, please;
• Line 486: use ‘dry’ instead of ‘aerial’;
• Line 237: For what purpose the SPAD values were measured if Chla and Chlb have been obtained?

Regards,

Author Response

Please,

see the attached file

Author Response File: Author Response.docx