The Quality and Productivity of Strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa Duch.) Improved by the Inoculation of PGPR Bacillus velezensis BS89 in Field Experiments

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (New Reviewer)

This is a well-written article and I anticipate that the manuscript should be of great interest to the researchers working on PGPR. I include my comments below, most of them are suggestions to improve the overall quality of the publication. I considered the manuscript suitable for publication subject to the following improvements.

The title may be revised as follows; "The quality and productivity of strawberry (Fragaria×ananassa Duch.) improved by the inoculation of PGPR Bacillus velezensis BS89 in field experiments".

The abstract section should be structured and more robust by adding prominent results.

In the Introduction section, some of the recent references should be cited such as;

In line 40: doi.org/10.1080/17429145.2022.2091801,

Line 46: doi.org/10.1007/s12223-022-00959-4,

In Lines 46 and 93, IAA must be elaborated at once. No need in line 93.

The paragraphs must be combined in lines 76 and 80.

Line 62: cite doi.org/10.1155/2019/9530963

Line 95-96: The aim of our research was to study the effect of the PGPR strain Bacillus velezensis BS89 used in combination with various forms of mineral fertilizers on the productivity and quality of two varieties of strawberries in a prolonged (three-year) field experiments.

M&M section

2.1 Line 101: Bacteria were cultured.... How many strains did you use? It's not a single one?  

2.2 Plants characteristics should be added in the introduction section and details related to experimental design should be added here. 

Line 169 again IAA, rectify.

Have you used Salkoswki reagents for the identification of IAA? with or without tryptophan...

Line 275: Было продемонстрировано, что штамм BS89 продуцирует большое количество IAA, но не способен 275 продуцировать гиббереллиновые кислоты и транс-зеатин????

Can you add the role of excessive IAA on Plant growth?

I think this requires some justification.

Have you studied the effect of nitrogen fertilizers on selected strain?

In discussion, section add some information from doi.org/10.1016/j.ejbt.2016.02.001

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author Response

See attached file

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

Abstract

- Line 17: which various forms of nitrogen fertilizers? Be precise.

- Underscore the scientific value-added to your paper in your abstract. Your abstract should clearly state the essence of the problem you are addressing, what you did and what you found and recommend. That will help a prospective reader of the abstract to decide if they wish to read the entire article.

- Please focus the main results and add the values of measured trait.

- What is the best recommendation for strawberry growers?

Introduction

- This section is good. However, the linkage between paragraphs is missed.

- Please subject the manuscript to review made by English Native speaker.

- Lines 80-88: This is not a review article. Please delete this section and highlight the novelty of this study.

- The objectives and hypothesis should be added in this section.

Martials and methods

- Lines 114-120: Please add the soil physical and chemical properties in one table.

- The statistical analysis is not clear.

Results

- Lines 275-276: Please delete these sentences.

- Line 281: The nutrient content and fruit yield not a physiological parameter. Please revise the sentence.

Table 3: In this table, please check the significant and non-significant factors based on the probability. For example, in the chlorophyll content of Cv Rusich, the probability of F1.Fertigation*F2.BS89 was recorded p < 0.29 and this is significant? Please check all.

- Why the data in table 3 reported average of three years and in table 4 reported differently?

Figure 1 and 2: Why not added the means comparison (similar letters) in the traits that shown in these figures?

- Please add increasing or decreasing percentage of measured traits.

Discussion

Line 370: The authors used ‘various forms of nitrogen fertilizers’ in first section of article. Also, in results and discussion section the authors used ‘mineral fertilizers’. Please use the same phrase throughout the article.

- Is there no need to repeat the experiment in different environmental conditions to measuring IAA production by this strain? Do you think this strain of bacteria is able to produce this amount of hormone in different environmental conditions?

- The using of PGPR Bacillus velezensis BS89 have any effects on the nutrient concentration and uptake in plant? Do you measure the nutrient concentration?

- Justify the novelty in this section.

Conclusion

- This section is repetitive and should be rewritten.

- Please make sure your conclusions' section underscores the scientific value-added of your paper, and/or the applicability of your findings/results. Highlight the novelty of your study.

Author Response

See attached file

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

Dear editor,

In the revised version, the authors have appropriately edited and revised this earlier version according to the comments and suggestions from the reviewers and have reasonably addressed most of the concerns and issues in the review reports. The current version could be accepted for publication in Agronomy journal.

Best regards

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors were conduced a good and hard work experiment to determine the effect of PGPR Bacillius velezensi BS89 on the productivity and quality of strawberries. Although they obtained interesting data, I have sine major concerns about the study. 

1- Field soil biochemical content must be included in the manuscript. 

2- Experimental design must be explained understandably. 

3- Chlorophyll content method must be included and which chlorophyll measured by authors must be explained clearly.

4- Table 1 and Table 2 should be removed from the main text, please present as supplemental data. 

5- Analyses title in the material method section must be explained detailly. 

6- Tables 2, 3, 4 and Fig 1 must be present and explained in the result section.

7- The result section should be improved, all table data must be explained carefully.

8- The discussion section must be improved. Tables 7 and 8 must be moved to the result section and explained in that section. 

9- Authors must discuss their results with the other studies deeply. 

 

Author Response

Please see attachments

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Chebotar and collaborators in the manuscript entitled ,,Effect of PGPR Bacillus velezensis BS89 on the productivity and quality of strawberry (Fragaria×ananassa Duch.) " submitted to Horticulturae describe results of three years field trial on the correlation between the application of Bacillus velezensis BS89 with various fertilizers on the productivity of two strawberries cultivars. The research is interesting and worth publication in the chosen journal. I have some minor comments:

Abstract should be better structured. Please improve this part.

• The abbreviation PGPR (Plant Growth-Promoting Rhizobacteria) is not explained in the abstract.
• Line 20 -> The strain has not been deposited in NCBI, but its whole genome sequence.
• Line 27 – “best results” is not informative enough for scientific publication. Please specify which parameter has been improved.

Introduction.

• I have an impression that some information is repeated in the lines 68-72 -> please rephrase this part
• Please provide more data on the species classified to PGPR in the introduction section
• In the last paragraph please underline that it was a field trial as it is a superiority of this study

Materials & Methods

• I believe that there is a mistake regarding storing a strain in a freezer at 280 ⁰C (line 133)
• There are no information on the method of DNA isolation, sequencing, assembly and annotation of the full genomic information of Bacillus velezensis Just the deposition number. In my opinion the part 138-147 (especially140-147) does not suit the M&M section. These are either results of the study or if they had been published earlier should be discussed in the discussion part.
• Please provide the appropriate group symbol according to Unified Soil Classification System (USCS) to section 159-161
• Please provide numeration for the subheadings
• Table 1 – I would resign from “Calculation of” kg/ha is enough. There is a mess in the amount of the applied Bacillus velezensis BS89 in this table.
• I would firstly explain what HD is, then list the sustained HD percentages.
• Please unify presentation of the bacterial inoculum (lines 177 and 196)
• The description of fractal composition analysis should be improved as it is distant from standard Materials & Methods descriptions. Tables 2, 3, 4, fig 1 belong rather to results than methods.

Results

• Lines 345-348 belong rather to Materials & Methods section
• Please specify the unit presented in Tables 7 and 8. Please state whether mean value were shown. Add some measure of variation in the dataset e.g. SE.
• There is some inequality in the amount of data collected for Rusich (Tables 2-5, 7, 8) and Troitskaya (Table 6) cultivars. Could the authors comment on that?
• Line 340 “best results” is not informative enough.

Discussion

• I suggest to improve the discussion section – it either repeats the results or speculates without proper literature references.
• Lines 380-386 belong to results, not discussion.
• No references to the tables with results should appear in discussion section

Conclusions

• “Best results” appear again (line 415)

General:

• The whole manuscript (including Tables) is not formatted according to MDPI requirements
• English needs some improvement. E.g. line 23 -> according to usual practice; to use fractal analysis. Line 46 -> environmentally friendly. There are some strangely sounding sentences e.g. “PGPR form strong associations with plants [3], 1978), which may be symbiotic or non-symbiotic” (line 49); “The results showed that the inoculation with PGPR strains significantly increased fruit quality, yield and plant growth and improved disease control, the cumulative yield increasing by 17.46-28.95%.” (line 109); “The complete genome sequences was deposited in National Center 428 for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) under the accession number MPHE00000000.” (line 428)
• Some editorial work is also needed. Lack of commas, full stops, or spaces (e.g. line 43, 58, 100, 106, 130, 195), some additional marks (e.g. line 49, 228), lack of italics (e.g. line 87), typos (e.g. line 119), lack of °C (lines 242-243) etc.

Author Response

Please see attachments

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Please correct Table 1, 2 (Supplementary Materials) as Table S1 in the text (L283, L289, L299). 

L312 align the reference number with the text 

 

Author Response

Please see attachments

Author Response File: Author Response.docx