Role of IAA and Primary Metabolites in Two Rounds of Adventitious Root Formation in Softwood Cuttings of Camellia sinensis (L.)
Wöstemeyer Johannes
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript is essentially well-written and adds some interesting new details for improving tea propagation and breeding. Nevertheless, there are several points that need to be reconsidered prior to publication.
The authors should check all abbreviations for necessity. It is generally recommended to avoid abbreviations for improving readability. The Abstract section must not contain any abbreviations at all. This must be readable without complications or reference to the main text, as it is included in databases as stand-alone version. Example: There is no reason for AR, NU or NL or NM. These and other abbreviations are not generally usual and decrease readability.
The authors shoud use present tense for reporting novel results (already in the Abstract and throughout the text). They should use past tense for findings that they report from the literature.
It is recommended to provide keywords with a logical order; in this case, alphabetical order is one possibility. Is "material basis" a reasonable keyword? Probably not. The authors should consider that keywords are essential for finding their contribution in databases.
There must be a single space between numbers and their dimension. "3cm" must read '3 cm'. Please check throughout the text.
Please check English style throughout. Example: "... singe node cuttings are difficult to survive ..." is certainly not what the authors want to say. Maybe: '... single node cuttings hardly survive the winter ...'? There are many such stylistic inaccuracies throughout the text. Please revise thoroughly.
Again: Please avoid unnecessary abbreviations. These render the text hard to read and will restrict reading to those directly from the specialised field of the contribution. This is not what the authors or our community want.
Check for correct appearance od formulae. eg: dH2O is not correct like Na2HPO4·12H2O and many others. The authors should also say, what exactly they mean by dH2O.
Also with repect to abbreviating the names of phytohormones, the authors should reconsider, if these are really necessary. At least, it is absolutely necessary to provide the full name together with the abbreviation at the beginning of each paragraph.
Figure 1 (and others): The authors must provide figure captions that, together with the figure, are understandable without referring to the main text. Figure 1: Please provide full length versions of NL, NM, NU in the caption. Please check all captions accordingly.
Figure 3 (and maybe others): For many in the community, it is not easy to distinguish between red and green. Please try to avoid mixed use of these colours in a single figure - whereever possible.
The reviewer will be glade to recommend publication of the contribution after revision.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
We greatly appreciate your comments and suggestions on our manuscript (ID: agronomy-1950352), which is indeed of great help for us. We have revised the manuscript following these comments and suggestions. All revisions made to the manuscript have been marked up using the “Track Changes” using MS Word in our revised manuscript.
Point 1: The authors should check all abbreviations for necessity. It is generally recommended to avoid abbreviations for improving readability. The Abstract section must not contain any abbreviations at all. This must be readable without complications or reference to the main text, as it is included in databases as stand-alone version. Example: There is no reason for AR, NU or NL or NM. These and other abbreviations are not generally usual and decrease readability.
Response 1: We have replaced the abbreviations in the abstract with full names as suggested, such as AR, NU, NL and NM.
Point 2: The authors shoud use present tense for reporting novel results (already in the Abstract and throughout the text). They should use past tense for findings that they report from the literature.
Response 2: As for the tense problem, we have used present tense for reporting novel results according to the suggestions, and used past tense for findings that we report from the literature.
Point 3: It is recommended to provide keywords with a logical order; in this case, alphabetical order is one possibility. Is "material basis" a reasonable keyword? Probably not. The authors should consider that keywords are essential for finding their contribution in databases.
Response 3: We have reordered the keywords using alphabetical order according to the suggestions，and "material basis" has been changed to "primary metabolites".
Point 4: There must be a single space between numbers and their dimension. "3cm" must read '3 cm'. Please check throughout the text.
Response 4: We have filled in the space between figures and units in the manuscript according to the suggestions.
Point 5: Please check English style throughout. Example: "... singe node cuttings are difficult to survive ..." is certainly not what the authors want to say. Maybe: '... single node cuttings hardly survive the winter ...'? There are many such stylistic inaccuracies throughout the text. Please revise thoroughly.
Response 5: We have revised these stylistic inaccuracies thoroughly in the revised manuscript.
Point 6: Again: Please avoid unnecessary abbreviations. These render the text hard to read and will restrict reading to those directly from the specialised field of the contribution. This is not what the authors or our community want.
Response 6: We have added the full abbreviation at the beginning of each result to make it easier for readers to understand.
Point 7: Check for correct appearance od formulae. eg: dH2O is not correct like Na2HPO4·12H2O and many others. The authors should also say, what exactly they mean by dH2O.
Response 7: dH2O is distilled H2O. We have rewritten the dH2O in the paper into distilled H2O, and corresponds to line 127 in manuscript review mode. In addition, the writing of the chemical formula in the text was also re-checked.
Point 8: Also with repect to abbreviating the names of phytohormones, the authors should reconsider, if these are really necessary. At least, it is absolutely necessary to provide the full name together with the abbreviation at the beginning of each paragraph.
Response 8: As for the full names of phytohormones, we have added the full names of phytohormones where they first appear in the relevant paragraphs as suggested.
Point 9: Figure 1 (and others): The authors must provide figure captions that, together with the figure, are understandable without referring to the main text. Figure 1: Please provide full length versions of NL, NM, NU in the caption. Please check all captions accordingly.
Response 9: According to the suggestion, we have perfected the picture captions of figure1 to 8, and added the corresponding full names of the samples.
Point 10: Figure 3 (and maybe others): For many in the community, it is not easy to distinguish between red and green. Please try to avoid mixed use of these colours in a single figure - whereever possible.
Response 10: We have modified the pictures in the manuscript with red and green colors according to the suggestions, which are respectively figure 3C,D, figure 4B, figure 5B and figure 6B.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The applied nature of the work and its contribution to the practice of accelerated production of tea plant cuttings are obvious.
To characterize the callus, it is necessary to apply histochemical methods of analysis.
When forming adventitious roots (AR), it is desirable to study the effect of auxin at least on cell division, for example, on the mitotic index.
Text editing required in the Discussion section, 4.1.
It is advisable to enlarge the font of fig. 2-7.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
We greatly appreciate your comments and suggestions on our manuscript (ID: agronomy-1950352), which is indeed of great help for us. We have revised the manuscript following these comments and suggestions. All revisions made to the manuscript have been marked up using the “Track Changes” using MS Word in our revised manuscript.
Point 1: To characterize the callus, it is necessary to apply histochemical methods of analysis.
Response 1: “Figure S1 Histological features of NL, NM, and NU cuttings at sampling” has been added to Supplementary Material and described in line 124-126 of revised manuscript.
Point 2: When forming adventitious roots (AR), it is desirable to study the effect of auxin at least on cell division, for example, on the mitotic index.
Response 2: In combination with Figure S1, we describe the effect of auxin on cell division, in line 208-212 at the Results section, 3.1.
Point 3: Text editing required in the Discussion section, 4.1.
Response 3: Discussion section, 4.1 has been text edited with the help of special English teachers.
Point 3: It is advisable to enlarge the font of fig. 2-7.
Response 4: We have enlarged the fonts in figures 2 to 7 as suggested.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
