Effect of Different Edaphic Crop Conditions on the Free Amino Acid Profile of PH-16 Dry Cacao Beans

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a nice and interesting paper.  I suggested only minor corrections related to the text editing (ex. L 458: ...glycine son los??? free amino acids....).

Author Response

Authors' comment: We have already made the correction in the manuscript.

Please, see attached files of the text with “Track Changes” / Word.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

I don't have major objections regarding the concept of this manuscript. I have read it and find it correctly written. Some minor corrections of english language are requested. However, I have found 33 % similarities (with software for plagiarism detection) with other papers, especially in the materials and methods and introduction. Although this plagiarism check is not 100 % perfect, I suggest to rewrite some parts with "your words" (yes, you have correctly added reference sources).

I suggest to add (into the Introduction part), additional literatures including exploratory statistical methods based on your (or similar) research subject(s) (if exists).

Are there any other statistical/chemometric techniques that could be used for interpretation of your results?

Author Response

(1) I don't have major objections regarding the concept of this manuscript. I have read it and find it correctly written. Some minor corrections of english language are requested. However, I have found 33 % similarities (with software for plagiarism detection) with other papers, especially in the materials and methods and introduction. Although this plagiarism check is not 100 % perfect, I suggest to rewrite some parts with "your words" (yes, you have correctly added reference sources).

Authors' comment: We understand and value the concern with issues of plagiarism. We are very attentive to this issue.  We try to put the correct references in each part of the methodology. The analysis part of high efficiency liquid chromatography for plant tissues is very similar in many papers. We follow a paper that was a reference at the time of the analysis. Furthermore, the analyses were carried out with the same equipment in the same laboratory. The analyses were carried out in 2009. Everything is strictly referenced.

(2) I suggest to add (into the Introduction part), additional literatures including exploratory statistical methods based on your (or similar) research subject(s) (if exists).

Authors' comment: The focus of the paper is not statistical. The steps used for statistical analyses are very common in multivariate statistics. As the introduction is already very long, we consider that it is not wise to extend it.

(3) Are there any other statistical/chemometric techniques that could be used for interpretation of your results?

Authors' comment: HPLC chemometric tests and techniques are performed in the laboratory. The main emphasis of this paper is not chemical-analytical, it is agronomic with a view to the cacao quality in different soil conditions. We consider these graphs with reading patterns to be unimportant, as everyone who tests HPLC on dry cacao beans follows the same analysis protocols. In another paper, we can save that specific information and publish it.