Biopriming with Bacillus subtilis Enhanced the Sulphur Use Efficiency of Indian Mustard under Graded Levels of Sulphur Fertilization

Reviewer-1

Comments

Author Response

The manuscript " Bio-priming with Bacillus subtilis enhanced the sulphur use efficiency of Indian mustard under graded levels of sulphur fertilization in Middle Gangetic Plains of India" by Singh S. et al. investigates the effect of bio-priming on sulphur uptake, enzyme activities and sulphur use efficiency of Indian mustard under different sulphur levels in the Middle Gangetic Plains of India. This is important to guide agronomic interventions for enhancing the production of oil seed crops in India.

However, having gone through the entire manuscript, there are some issues that need to be addressed before it can be considered fit for publication. See my comments below.

Thanks for your positive opinion.

We have seriously addressed all your queries as showed below.

Please provide full description in the method section, particularly on Crop Management (section 2.4) and the diacid digestion method (line 145, section 2.6).

We have added the Crop Management and di-acid digestion information. Thanks.

Analysis of results: for the kind of results presented in this paper, ANOVA Tables should be provided as Supplementary Material, especially for data shown in Tables 3 and 4. This helps support/fortify the information being conveyed by the paper.

We have added the ANOVA of Table 3 and 4 in separate Supplementary Material.

Figures 2a-d: The minimum and maximum y-axis values for the bar graphs can be set / customised to be as close to the observed values as possible. For example, in Figure 2c, the minimum and maximum y-axis values can be set at 80 and 130, respectively.

All the figures have been changed considering the minimum and maximum y-axis values as suggested. Thank you.

Discussion: line 363-366: authors assert that, ‘In the present study, the S content was recorded to be highest in the grain followed by stover and root. This can be explained by the fact that mobilization of S from root and stover to canola seed is highly necessary for oil synthesis (Rehman et al., 2013).’

Agreed, sulphur is necessary for oil synthesis; BUT, what (mechanism) could be driving that high sulphur concentration in grains and stems as compared to roots? In other words, what is underlying high transportation/uptake of sulphur in up the stems, especially considering that sulphur is a less mobile nutrient in plants? Please discuss this in relation to possibly biopriming, sulphur availability and sulphur transporters!

We have added an additional explanation to this as suggested.

As showed by Abdullah et al., (2010), partitioning and remobilization of total S taken up in leaves, petioles, stem, and roots of oilseed rape varies with the S concentration in soil. They observed that when plants were supplied with additional S, leaves of were the sole export tissue, while the main sink tissues were stem (79%) and root (13%); while in case of S deficient plants, 65% of S taken up is found in the roots and about 23% is found in leaves, with most of the latter distributed to young leaves. This indicates oilseed crops who love S, uptake and mobilize S to the tissues more than the roots, as a result, we noticed more S accumulation in seeds.

Line 15: the bracket and its contents (with and without) should be deleted. It’s serving no purpose there.

Deleted as suggested

Line 17: revise as follows ‘… during the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 winter seasons…..’

Corrected as suggested

Line 37: To be more specific, change ‘Agricultural production system…’ to ‘Global crop production…’

Corrected as suggested

Line 45: NPK should be defined in full at first mention.

Full name defined as suggested

Line 47: revise as follows ‘… the soil and ultimately compromising food quality and human health’ (Mandal et al. 2021).

Revised as suggested

Line 48-49: There are some apparent grammatical errors, please revise this sentence.

Revised the sentence as suggested

Table 2: The chemical composition description of Bentonite sulphur should be provided as a Table foot note, since Bentonite sulphur is featuring prominently in Table 2.

Chemical composition of Bentonite sulphur (90% S^o) is provided as a Table footnote as suggested.

Line 86: ‘is most’ should be changed to ‘is the most’

Corrected as suggested

Line 93: the word ‘precised’ is wrongly spelt, and also, should be changed to ‘precise’

Corrected as suggested

Line 95: ‘…of nutrient’ should be changed to ‘.. of suphur nutrient…’

Corrected as suggested

Line 97: defined INM in full.

Defined the full name as suggested

Line 100: change ‘involve’ to ‘involved’. Moreover, please make that sentence complete by describing further ‘the mineralization; , of what?

Sentence clarified as suggested

Line 109: ‘…the years 2018 and 2019’ should be changed to ‘… 2018 and 2019 seasons’

Corrected as suggested

Line 135: change ‘are’ to ‘were’

Corrected as suggested

Line 136: change ‘is’ to ‘was’

Corrected as suggested

Line 141: the dried plant samples were ground and stored in plastic bags at what conditions? Please specify.

It was at room temperature. Sentence clarified as suggested

Line 211: no need to capitalize ‘VERSION’

Corrected as suggested

Line 406-407; Abbreviations AEs, ARs and PEs should be defined in full here to aid understanding.

Abbreviations defined as suggested

Line 437: Change ‘shown’ to ‘showed’

Corrected as suggested

Reviewer-2

Comments

Author Response

Sulphur deficiency is a common phenomenon in Indian soils. This paper confirmed that inoculation of Bacillus could improve the efficiency of Sulphur in mustard. Obviously, the experimental results of this paper are of great significance to the production of mustard. There are some suggestions for the author to consider:

Authors are immensely thankful to your positive comments on our work.

We have incorporated your valuable suggestions in our article.

Sometimes the word bio-priming is used and sometimes the word biopriming is used, Please unify the whole article.

Thanks for noticing the typological error. We have replaced the word with “bio-priming” throughout the draft for uniformity.

The title of the paper could be a little more concise, It looks too long.

Thanks for the suggestion. The title has been changed to “Bio-priming with Bacillus subtilis enhanced the sulphur use efficiency of Indian mustard under graded levels of sulphur fertilization”

Reviewer-3

Comments

Author Response

The topic of the manuscript is interesting; the experiments are arranged correctly.

Thanks for your positive opinion on our research article.

The large amount of data does not allow to see regularities. Maybe it would  be better to show the average values or to choose another way of presenting the data.

We respect your opinion. In fact, in this paper we have highlighted and compared the year-wise effect with pooled observations to create interest among the readers. However, these figures are now revised to get more clarity on variations as suggested by the other reviewer.

The significance letters need to be revised. In Table 3, different letters are added to the same numbers.

Letters in the table have been revised as suggested.

The references do not follow a uniform style.

References have been edited for a uniform style.

The manuscript does not follow a uniform notation of abbreviations and action signs ( h / hr, x/*, -1/ / ).

We have checked throughout the manuscript as suggested.

For several references publication years do not match.

We have checked the reference section.

References are not in alphabetical order.

We have checked the reference section for alphabetical order.

Usually the term grain is used for cereals. Maybe the term seed is better.

Thanks for the suggestion. We have replaced the word “grain” with “seed” throughout the manuscript.

In the measuring units of alkaline phosphatase and arylsulphatase activity, the coloring compound must be specified.
Other suggestions are in the attached manuscript.

This was very important to include in unit representation. Thank you.

All the other suggestions provided in the PDF have been incorporated accordingly. Thanks a lot.