Evaluation of the Relationship between Cultivar, Endophyte and Environment on the Expression of Persistence in Perennial Ryegrass Populations Using High-Throughput Phenotyping

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This manuscript is easy to follow and provided information well.  There are several suggestions below.

In 2.3 Experimental Design: what is the plot size of this experiment?

In 2.4 Sensor-based pasture height: does the ultrasonic sonar sensor measure height continuously during driving or stop-n-go measurement in each plot?

In line 237: in table 1 the altitude is 30 m.  Which one is correct?

In line 238:  in table 1 the speed is 6 m/s.  Which one is correct?

In Table 2: add footnotes about Rn, Rr, Rg, Rre, Rb.

In line 282: change Figure 4 to Figure 3.  From here figure numbers do not match with text.

In line 329: change 2021 to 2020.

In Figure 5: Make axes font bigger.

In Figure 6, line 359: Change black square to gray square and change 2019 to 2020.

 In Figure 7, line 383: Change black square to gray square and change 2019 to 2020.

In line 388: change Figure 9 to 8.

Figure 9 is not in text, so remove this figure.

Figure 10: move it after line 421.

Table 4: move it after line 453.

Figure 11 is not in text, so remove this figure.

In line 440 - 453: to use 'significant', add significant level after the word (ex. significant in 95 % level)

In line 453: remove (Figure 10).

In line 530: change sub-section number to 4.2.

In line 562: change sub-section number to 4.3.

Reviewer suggests using machine learning models for this data analysis.  REML is good method and ML models could be good to estimate pasture persistence or dry biomass based on the variables collected already.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We appreciate your valuable comments given in this manuscript. We have addressed each of your comments in the revised manuscript using MS word “Track changes” function. Our responses to your comments are listed in green colour italics fonts in the attached file. 

Thank you,

Sincerely,

Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The study investigated the interaction of cultivar, endophyte presence, and environmental conditions on ryegrass pasture persistence. It is a typical agronomy study with proper justification and a high-throughput phenotyping twist. The manuscript is comprehensively written and I did not observe any major issues.

Regarding the term “persistence”, as I do not see a clear definition of it in the manuscript, adding the information in introduction would provide clarity to readers.

Although high-throughput phenotyping is a key aspect of data collection, it was only introduced in a short paragraph at the end of introduction, which is completely out of balance relative to the rest content in introduction and reads odd. I suggest the authors to significantly expand the literature review regarding the high-throughput phenotyping technologies used in the study and their applications in current literature, at least, in the context of ryegrass.

Line 103-104, knowledge gaps in current literature should be more specific.

Line 118-120, I do not think this is an appropriate research object at all. It is vague and does not reflect the knowledge gaps that the study tries to fill.

Line 127, shouldn’t “ten cultivars” be 16 since four endophytes x four cultivars = 16?

Section 2.4, based on my previous experience, my concern is that ultrasonic sensor is not appropriate for sward since grass might not be dense enough to reflect strong echoes back to sensor, hence the height measurements were not accurate.

One weak aspect of the manuscript in my opinion is the lack of explanation on why the specific phenotypic data were collected or why such data is necessary for the study. For example, why are height, vegetation indices, and ground cover all needed to reflect pasture persistence? How are height, vegetation indices, and ground cover associated with pasture persistence?

Even though the manuscript title indicates that the study explored “the relationship between cultivar, endophyte and environment on the expression of persistence in perennial ryegrass”, besides telling which cultivar and endophyte would enhance ryegrass persistence, I do not see explicit conclusions regarding the “interaction relationship” between cultivar, endophyte and environment on ryegrass persistence on a high level being made.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We appreciate your valuable comments given in this manuscript. We have addressed each of your comments in the revised manuscript using MS word “Track changes” function. Our responses to your comments are listed below in green colour italics fonts in the attached file. 

Thank you,

Sincerely,

Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have addressed my comments sufficiently.