Agro-Industrial Compost in Soilless Cultivation Modulates the Vitamin C Content and Phytochemical Markers of Plant Stress in Rocket Salad (Diplotaxis tenuifolia (L.) DC.)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

It is important to examine the effect of compost as a cultivation substrate on crop yield and quality. The author made a careful study on the effect of agro-industrial compost on production and quality of rocket salad, but it was not well demonstrated. The author took “Agro-industrial compost in soilless cultivation improves nutrient content and phytochemicals in rocket salad [Diplotaxis tenuifolia (L.) DC. ]” as the title. However, no matter in the introduction section, or in the results and discussion section, many contradictory or unrelated contents to the topic or the conclusions of this paper appeared. For example, the author spent too much time comparing and discussing the difference between the first harvest and the second harvest, which is not very close to the theme of the article. considering the positive significance of Glucosinolates and (poly) phenolic for health, the reduction in content of these substances in rocket salad cultivated with composted should be unfavorable. This contradicts the author's conclusion (the agricultural composite used in our study may be a potential alternative to peat, since it improved almost all the biological parameters). In addition, the English of this article needs to be improved.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We are grateful to the reviewer for the corrections and suggestions, we have answered in the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript was generally well written with sufficient details.  However, it requires editing.

Below is a list of selected sentences that need modification for clarity:

Lines 173-174: Suggestion for the sentence: Vitamin C was measured by liquid chromatography using the Zapata and Dufour method [27] with minor modifications. 

Line 212: Consider "Leaf number" as replacement for "Leaves number"

Line 225: Consider replacing "did not found" with "did not find"

Line 237: Write WUE in full with the acronym in parenthesis since it is first time it is used in the manuscript.

Lines 307-310: This sentence appears to be missing a word or words.

Line 390: Are you referring to secondary metabolites?

Line 399: This sentence also appears to be missing something. Are you referring to peristaltic movement or peristalsis?

Lines 405-407: Rephrase sentence for clarity

Line 411: Consider replacing "concern" with "regard"

Author Response

We are grateful to the reviewer for the corrections and suggestions, we have answered in the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The author needs to carefully check, correct and supplement relevant experiment information, such as water regime, statistical analysis method, etc. For details, please see the notes in the pdf. The structure of this article can be further optimized. There are many contents about Glucosinolates and (poly)phenolic profile of rocket leaves（3.2.1）, but in fact, it is not much relevant to the topic of this article. In addition, the author also needs to carefully check and unify some expressions(for example, mg/g vs mg g-1, Diplotaxis tenuifolia vs D. tenuifolia)

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We answered to the reviewer in the attached file. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx