Overcompensation Can Be an Ideal Breeding Target

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Review for the article “Overcompensation can be an ideal breeding target”.

The represented manuscript has been well-performed in the whole. All the paragraphs are explicated sequentially. The actual problem of defoliation in maize and in other crops is described well in the literature review. From the manuscript it is apparent that the issue of defoliated plants is quite interesting for observation and difficult as beneficial result of the defoliation on crop yield depends on several critical factors such as genotype, environment, timing of defoliation. The authors have reported the evidence of positive yield responses to defoliation referring to previous works of their collegues and conducting own experiments. All the results are adequate and are proved by appropriate tables and pictures.

However, there are several orthographical and grammatical errors.

Point 1: (Line 14) Instead of adverb “likely” you should use construction “to be likely to” as a predicate, i.e. “Defoliated plants are likely to use…”

Point 2: (Line 17) You should revise the spelling of the word “overcompensation”, i.e. “overcomepensation” > “overcompensation”.

Point 3: (Line 59) You should insert the space between words, i.e. “Agrawal1998” > “Agrawal 1998”.

Point 4: (Line 82) You should revise the grammatical construction of the sentence, i.e. “That genotypes respond differently to defoliation has been reported in all studies…” needs to be replaced by “That genotypes responding differently to defoliation have been reported in all studies…”

Point 5: (Line 83) The subject “impacts” should be replaced by “impact” because further you have written the predicate “was”.

Point 6: (Line 112) You should replace the predicate “is not required” by “are not required” because the subject “responses” is plural.

Point 7: (Line 150) You should replace the predicate “is exposed” by “are exposed” because it corresponds to the “leaves” and it is plural.

Point 8: (Line 163) You should replace “must” by “had to” because “must” contradicts Sequence of Tenses. As “speculated” is in Past Simple so “must” should be in Past Simple too, i.e. “had to”.

Point 9: (Line 169) Instead of adverb “likely” you should use construction “to be likely to” as a predicate, i.e. “Defoliation carried out earlier or later is more likely to lead…”

Point 10: (Line 186) You should replace the participle “resulting” by verb “resulted” because you forgot about predicate in clause “That treating…”

Point 11: (Line 195) You should replace the predicate “are clear” by “is clear” because the subject is “likelihood” and it is singular”.

Point 12: (Line 196) You should revise the grammatical forms of the words “repeated” and “observed” because the meaning of the sentence is unclear.

Point 13: (Line 199) You should replace the predicate “grow” by “grows” because the subject “row” is singular.

Point 14: (Line 208) You should replace “was conducted” by “conducted” because it is not a predicate but attribute to “trial”.

Point 15 (Line 210) You should replace “must had” by “must have” because infinitive follows “must”.

Point 16 (Line 212) I guess it should be “sinking” instead of “silking”.

Point 17 (Line 215) “Few of” should be replaced by “a few of”.

Point 18 (Line 230) The predicate “is” should be replaced by “was” because “is” contradicts Sequence of Tenses. As “occurred” is in Past Simple so “is” should be in Past Simple too, i.e. “was”.

Point 19 (Line 235) You should insert hyphen between words, i.e. “well-watered”.

Point 20 (Line 247)  You should replace “must” by “had to” because “must” contradicts Sequence of Tenses. As “speculated” is in Past Simple so “must” should be in Past Simple too, i.e. “had to”.

Point 21 (Line 250) You should check the spelling of the word “outcome” and replace “ourcome” by “outcome”.

Point 22 (Line 251, 252) The word “assess” repeats in the sentence. You should replace “ was assessed” by, for example, “was measured” to avoid tautology.

Point 23 (Line 253, 254) If you have written “can be huge” in Present Simple you should connect “notice” with the Present and replace “noticed” by “have noticed”.

Point 24 (Line 260)  I guess it should be “sinking” instead of “silking”.

Point 25 (Line 260) You should replace “Note” by construction “It was noted”. Also you should replace the participle “indicating” by the verb “indicated” because you forgot about predicate in clause “that the colour of cobs…”

Point 26 (Line 261) You forgot to insert “non-defoliated” after “while.

Point 27 (Line 266) I guess it should be “isolated incidents” instead of “isolated incidences” as in line 268.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Many thanks for helping us with this manuscript. I am very grateful to the detailed suggestions. I find most of the suggestions very helpful and incorporated them in the revised manuscript. Please see below all the detailed point-to-point responses to the suggestions.

Reviewer #1 There are several orthographical and grammatical errors:

Point 1: (Line 14) Instead of adverb “likely” you should use construction “to be likely to” as a predicate, i.e. “Defoliated plants are likely to use…” – The suggested change made (Line 14);

Point 2: (Line 17) You should revise the spelling of the word “overcompensation”, i.e. “overcomepensation” > “overcompensation”. – The suggested change made (Line 17);

Point 3: (Line 59) You should insert the space between words, i.e. “Agrawal1998” > “Agrawal 1998”. – The suggested change made (Line 59);

Point 4: (Line 82) You should revise the grammatical construction of the sentence, i.e. “That genotypes respond differently to defoliation has been reported in all studies…” needs to be replaced by “That genotypes responding differently to defoliation have been reported in all studies…” – The suggested change made (Line 83);

Point 5: (Line 83) The subject “impacts” should be replaced by “impact” because further you have written the predicate “was”. – The suggested change made (Line 85);

Point 6: (Line 112) You should replace the predicate “is not required” by “are not required” because the subject “responses” is plural. – The suggested change made (Line 117);

Point 7: (Line 150) You should replace the predicate “is exposed” by “are exposed” because it corresponds to the “leaves” and it is plural. – The suggested change made and the sentence have been inserted into Line 102-104 (Line 155);

Point 8: (Line 163) You should replace “must” by “had to” because “must” contradicts Sequence of Tenses. As “speculated” is in Past Simple so “must” should be in Past Simple too, i.e. “had to”. – The suggested change made (Line 168);

Point 9: (Line 169) Instead of adverb “likely” you should use construction “to be likely to” as a predicate, i.e. “Defoliation carried out earlier or later is more likely to lead…” – The suggested change made (Line 174);

Point 10: (Line 186) You should replace the participle “resulting” by verb “resulted” because you forgot about predicate in clause “That treating…” – The suggested change made (Line 192);

Point 11: (Line 195) You should replace the predicate “are clear” by “is clear” because the subject is “likelihood” and it is singular”. – The suggested change made (Line 200);

Point 12: (Line 196) You should revise the grammatical forms of the words “repeated” and “observed” because the meaning of the sentence is unclear. – The suggested change made (Line 201);

Point 13: (Line 199) You should replace the predicate “grow” by “grows” because the subject “row” is singular. – The suggested change made (Line 204);

Point 14: (Line 208) You should replace “was conducted” by “conducted” because it is not a predicate but attribute to “trial”. – The suggested change made (Line 213);

Point 15 (Line 210) You should replace “must had” by “must have” because infinitive follows “must”. – The suggested change made (Line 215);

Point 16 (Line 212) I guess it should be “sinking” instead of “silking”.  – ‘Silking’ or ‘tasselling’ is correct. Used the latter as it was used in other parts of the text (Line 217);

Point 17 (Line 215) “Few of” should be replaced by “a few of”. –  The authors are trying to say is that ‘hardly any of the defoliated plants …’;

Point 18 (Line 230) The predicate “is” should be replaced by “was” because “is” contradicts Sequence of Tenses. As “occurred” is in Past Simple so “is” should be in Past Simple too, i.e. “was”. – The suggested change made (Line 235);

Point 19 (Line 235) You should insert hyphen between words, i.e. “well-watered”. – The suggested change made (Line 240);

Point 20 (Line 247)  You should replace “must” by “had to” because “must” contradicts Sequence of Tenses. As “speculated” is in Past Simple so “must” should be in Past Simple too, i.e. “had to”. – The suggested change made (Line 253);

Point 21 (Line 250) You should check the spelling of the word “outcome” and replace “ourcome” by “outcome”. – The suggested change made (Line 256);

Point 22 (Line 251, 252) The word “assess” repeats in the sentence. You should replace “ was assessed” by, for example, “was measured” to avoid tautology. – The suggested change made (Line 259);

Point 23 (Line 253, 254) If you have written “can be huge” in Present Simple you should connect “notice” with the Present and replace “noticed” by “have noticed”. – The suggested change made (Line 260);

Point 24 (Line 260) I guess it should be “sinking” instead of “silking”. – ‘Silking’ or ‘tasselling’ is correct. It represents the stage of flowering in maize. Used the latter as it was used in other parts of the text (Line 267).

Point 25 (Line 260) You should replace “Note” by construction “It was noted”. Also you should replace the participle “indicating” by the verb “indicated” because you forgot about predicate in clause “that the colour of cobs…” – The suggested change made (Line 267-268);

Point 26 (Line 261) You forgot to insert “non-defoliated” after “while. – The plants here mean that the defoliated plants still remain green (Line 268);

Point 27 (Line 266) I guess it should be “isolated incidents” instead of “isolated incidences” as in line 268. – The suggested change made (Line 270);

I thank you and the reviewers again for the constructive suggestions and hope that the revised manuscript is suitable for publication.

With kind regards,

Chunji Liu

CSIRO Agriculture & Food

Regards,

Chunji

Reviewer 2 Report

The ability of cultivated plants to overcompensate defoliation offers great possibilities not only to the practice of agricultural production to increase yield or stress tolerance, but also to theoretic scientists to make biological production models more relevant. I was happy to read that the authors were brave enough to make questions about the relevance of the mainstream models that consider leaf loss clearly associated with yield loss because of the decreased photosynthetising surface. Our theoretic models should be reconsidered, and this review paper gives some fuel to it.

I am convinced that overcompensation is important not only for breeding programs, but also for plant protection decisions as well: moderate herbivory can be beneficial (as it was cited by the authors), so in these cases the term "pest" is not correct, because "pest" should be harmful organism (which is not the case when overcompensation causes yield increase), and should not be used as synonym of "herbivore". I suggest it to be highlighted.

The structure of the paper is well designed and reader-friendly. I noticed only two typical mistakes:

1. Some abbreviations are not explained, or explained, but not at the first place whet it appeared (e.g. "QTL" in line 21; "D7" in line 100, etc.);
2. The authors' own results are not cited correctly, so the reader does not know if it was a published or unpublished work (e.g. Table 1, Table 2.).

Some other minor mistakes or sentences to make more clear:

Line 59: resistance against aphids or against something else?

Lines 63-65: missing predicate

Line 108: "similarly", not "similar"

Line 299: delete redundant reference numbering

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Many thanks for helping us with this manuscript. I am very grateful to the detailed suggestions. I find most of the suggestions very helpful and incorporated them in the revised manuscript. Please see below all the detailed point-to-point responses to the suggestions.

Reviewer #2

I am convinced that overcompensation is important not only for breeding programs, but also for plant protection decisions as well: moderate herbivory can be beneficial (as it was cited by the authors), so in these cases the term "pest" is not correct, because "pest" should be harmful organism (which is not the case when overcompensation causes yield increase), and should not be used as synonym of "herbivore". I suggest it to be highlighted. – We fully agree with the above viewpoint and made sure that the word ‘pest’ is not used in the manuscript. When citing others works, we used the insect or animal names as used in the original papers (lines 52 – 61).

The structure of the paper is well designed and reader-friendly. I noticed only two typical mistakes:

1. Some abbreviations are not explained, or explained, but not at the first place when it appeared (e.g. "QTL" in line 21; "D7" in line 100, etc.); – The suggested changes made. Full name of “QTL” at the first place has been added in Line 21, and the definition for the ‘droopy method’ is inserted before ‘D7’ was used (lines 102-105).
2. The authors' own results are not cited correctly, so the reader does not know if it was a published or unpublished work (e.g. Table 1, Table 2.). – Table 1 is the unpublished work and we have made it clear in Line 110 as suggested.

Some other minor mistakes:

Line 59: resistance against aphids or against something else? - The suggested change made (Line 61);

Lines 63-65: missing predicate – addressed this issue by removing ‘grown in the Colombian Andes’ (line 63-65);

Line 108: "similarly", not "similar" - The suggested change made (Line 113);

Line 299: delete redundant reference numbering - The suggested change made (Line 302,  Line 304, Line 308, Line 312, Line 335, and Line 339).

In addition, we have also corrected several other typos include:

1. Lines 36-37: replaced the maize production figure with the latest available.
2. Line 50 – changed Q & C to lower case.
3. Line 65 – deleted ‘that’.
4. Lines 80 – changed ‘breeder program’ to ‘breeding program’.
5. Line 96 – replaced ‘which’ with ‘that’.
6. Lines 100-101 – rephrased the sentence.
7. Line 115 – inserted ‘is’.
8. Line 184 – remove ‘mainly’’.
9. Line 193 – replaced ‘with’ with ‘which’.
10. Line 223 – inserted ‘in northern China’.
11. Line 241 – replace ‘not shown’ with ‘Fig. 2B’.
12. Line 288-289 – added an item in the acknowledgements.

I thank you and the reviewers again for the constructive suggestions and hope that the revised manuscript is suitable for publication.

With kind regards,

Chunji Liu

CSIRO Agriculture & Food