Fusarium Crown Rot Reduces Water Use and Causes Yield Penalties in Wheat under Adequate and above Average Water Availability

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In this study, Buster et al. reported how Fusarium crown rot affects water use and yield under adequate and above average water availability. The manuscript represents a very important research issue, and provides valuable data for better understanding of factors influencing plants response on F. pseudograminearum infection under different water regimes. However, there are some issues in Material and methods as well as in Results that should be better explained and corrected.
1. The major concern arises from the fact that seed was treated with Vibrance® of 360 mL/100 kg for bunt and smut control although it is known that Vibrance could affect Fusarium crown rot and yield. Please, comment.
2. In addition, authors should be more precise in reporting measures of crown rot infection. Reporting results as „Inoculated“, „Uninoculated“ and „Screening %“, without providing more detailed information on the level of infection, is not enough. Authors reported levels of disease indices in Figure S4 for field experiments, but it should be presented in the paper with more precise analysis on relationship between different levels of disease infection and other parameters. I suggest using Crown Rot Index as Forknall et al (2019) did (doi: 10.1094/PHYTO-09-18-0354-R).  3. More discussion on factors affecting results in field conditions (supported by statistical analysis) would be appreciated.
In my opinion the manuscript could be published, but more precise statistical analysis and discussion on obtained results should be provided.     

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

Introduction is very poor and need to improve

I did not see the source of pathogen 

how many replicate you used in your experiment

references are old and need to update 

 Add DOI for all your references.  

The style and font of all references should be the same. 

Author Response

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Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors, Although some issues in the revised manuscript are addressed, there are no significant improvements in respect to data analysis and presentation. Although infection occurred despite using Vibrance, you can not say that it did not affect final results. The reference that you provided  clearly indicates that Vibrance could impact yield losses: "Vibrance and Rancona Dimension significantly reduced the extent of yield loss from FCR in 6 of 14 experiments whilst EverGol Energy reduced FCR yield loss in 8 of 14 field trials (Table 1)". There are many factors that should be considered to explain why Vibrance did not affect yield in the rest of locations. In addition, authors did not correctly address suggestions to report measures of crown rot infection more precisely. Using terms such as: „Inoculated“, „Uninoculated“ and „Screening %“ is not correct. The term "Severity" usually indicates the level of infection (the extent of browning symptoms) of individual plants . The Heuberger formula  should be used to determine a disease index (DI) as was also indicated by Forknall et al 2019 (reference 14). Reporting results in the form of Crown Rot Index would be appreciated. I am sorry to tell you, but the manuscript in current form is not acceptable for publication. 

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

I see that authors improved the article 

Author Response

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