Plant Biostimulants as an Effective Tool for Increasing Physiological Activity and Productivity of Different Sugar Beet Varieties

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

No special comments, for me it is ok and acceptable for submission in the current form.

Author Response

Thank you for your opinion, we really appreciate it

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article is interesting and has high potential, applied to a culture of great relevance. The presentation of the text is coherent, with clear ideas that enhance the quality of the article.

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

we greatly appreciate the time you have devoted to reviewing our manuscript. Based on your valuable comments, the manuscript has been revised and we believe that this has significantly increased its quality.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Line119: humus content no unit?

Line 151: 2 for H₂0 needs subscripts.

Line 189: Need a more detailed description of the method of analysis, was there a normality, homogeneity of variance test before subjecting the data to ANOVA?

Line 195: The author emphasizes temperature and rainfall extensively in the paper, suggesting that the differences between years are solely attributed to temperature and rainfall. However, such a statement appears to be overly generalizing. In fact, the factors influencing inter-annual variations are multifaceted, encompassing extreme temperatures, average temperatures, rainfall, sunshine hours, and more. To comprehensively investigate these two factors, it is necessary to include studies from multiple years or introduce additional experimental variables.

Table 2: Is the standard error of PRI3 so large that there is significant difference between them?

Figure 2: It is sufficient to include a legend in the same figure. Why is there a difference between the points on the same X-axis for different treatments? This affects the comparison of the same X-axis data. If there is concern about overlapping between data points and lines, why not use a bar graph instead?

Figure 3: The legend seems to be inconsistent with the colors in the figure. Why were all treatments combined for multiple comparisons instead of comparing them separately by year and treatment?

Figure 7: The indicators lack units. The entire manuscript needs to be checked.

Line 463: The conclusion should be more concise.

Table 1S: When representing F-values, indicators do not need to be accompanied by units.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

we greatly appreciate the time you have devoted to reviewing our manuscript. Based on your valuable comments, the manuscript has been revised and we believe that this has significantly increased its quality.

Line119: humus content no unit?

Thanks for the notification, the unit has been added

Line 151: 2 for H₂0 needs subscripts.

Thanks for the notification, the error has been fixed.

Line 189: Need a more detailed description of the method of analysis, was there a normality, homogeneity of variance test before subjecting the data to ANOVA?

Thank you for your valuable comment, the required information has been added.

Line 195: The author emphasizes temperature and rainfall extensively in the paper, suggesting that the differences between years are solely attributed to temperature and rainfall. However, such a statement appears to be overly generalizing. In fact, the factors influencing inter-annual variations are multifaceted, encompassing extreme temperatures, average temperatures, rainfall, sunshine hours, and more. To comprehensively investigate these two factors, it is necessary to include studies from multiple years or introduce additional experimental variables.

Thank you for your valuable comment. We are aware that there are more variables that can significantly influence the results. In our conditions, we normally deal with the comparison of these two quantities. Based on your comment, the statement has been corrected and in the future we will consider the evaluation of several variables in relation to the evaluation of the year.

Table 2: Is the standard error of PRI3 so large that there is significant difference between them?

The result was checked again and a significant difference was confirmed. This may be the result of a high number of measurements for the observed parameter.

Figure 2: It is sufficient to include a legend in the same figure. Why is there a difference between the points on the same X-axis for different treatments? This affects the comparison of the same X-axis data. If there is concern about overlapping between data points and lines, why not use a bar graph instead?

Thanks for your advice. Figure was partially modified (legend added). Regarding the second part of the question, there is no concern. Unfortunately, the statistical program used to create the graphs only allows this style of display. Considering the representation of changes over time, we think this style of display is more appropriate and would like to keep it.

Figure 3: The legend seems to be inconsistent with the colors in the figure. Why were all treatments combined for multiple comparisons instead of comparing them separately by year and treatment?

The legend has been adjusted to match the colors in the image. We use this assessment approach as a standard to highlight the interaction effect between year and treatment. Treatment-only comparisons are shown in Table 2

Figure 7: The indicators lack units. The entire manuscript needs to be checked.

Thank you for the notification, the units for the parameters have been supplemented.

Line 463: The conclusion should be more concise.

Based on your comment, this chapter has been shortened.

Table 1S: When representing F-values, indicators do not need to be accompanied by units.

Thank you for your valuable comment, the table has been modified.

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors presented very interesting data of effects of different biostimulants on physiological activity and productivity of sugar beet. Although this type of research is not new but the authors did a lot of experiments to conclude their hypothesis. I have some comments and suggestions to improve the manuscript.

Title of the experiments should be improved (the biostimulants can be specified)

Abstract: Please follow the authors guidelines and improve the abstract.

The Introduction must be improved. There is no linking sentences among the paragraphs. And the chronology of the paragraphs does not sounds good. The chronology should be as follows- (Problems statement, significance of designed crop and relation with the problems, available solution of the problems and importance of the designed solution, specific objectives of the research in relation with previous one). Please try to use simple sentences so that it could be easily understandable to the non-specialist readers.

Materials and methods must be improved.

2.1 Experimental setup: It`s better to add a brief description of the techniques followed.

Source of figure 1 must be cited and the quality of figure 1 should be fulfilled by the journal's requirements

Results: Quality of figure 2 should be fulfilled by the journal's requirements.

In some figures, statistical analysis are missing. If they are not significant, please add the words in the text/ legends.

Discussion: Sub-titles for each paragraph are recommended 

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor English correction is recommended

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

we greatly appreciate the time you have devoted to reviewing our manuscript. Based on your valuable comments, the manuscript has been revised and we believe that this has significantly increased its quality.

Title of the experiments should be improved (the biostimulants can be specified)

The source of biostimulants is specified in keywords. If possible, we would like to keep the original name.

Abstract: Please follow the authors guidelines and improve the abstract.

The abstract was partially modified and supplemented. Thank you for this comment.

The Introduction must be improved. There is no linking sentences among the paragraphs. And the chronology of the paragraphs does not sounds good. The chronology should be as follows- (Problems statement, significance of designed crop and relation with the problems, available solution of the problems and importance of the designed solution, specific objectives of the research in relation with previous one). Please try to use simple sentences so that it could be easily understandable to the non-specialist readers.

Thank you for your opinion, it is much appreciated and therefore the chronology of the paragraphs has been adjusted based on the request.

Materials and methods must be improved.

Thank you for the valuable comment, some information has been added to the MM chapter.

2.1 Experimental setup: It`s better to add a brief description of the techniques followed.

According our opinion, the description of the required experimental setup (Randomized Complete Block Design; Salkind 2010) and the techniques used is given in the text on page 3 in subsection 2.1, where the individual steps are described. We also agreed with the other authors of the manuscript on the stated statement.

Source of figure 1 must be cited and the quality of figure 1 should be fulfilled by the journal's requirements

The source is the author of the article and the image resolution meets the criteria. If necessary, the image type can be changed.

Results: Quality of figure 2 should be fulfilled by the journal's requirements.

The image has been edited, the resolution now meets the criteria of the journal.

In some figures, statistical analysis are missing. If they are not significant, please add the words in the text/ legends.

This is due to the fact that no significant influence of the factor on the observed parameter was detected using ANOVA. The information was added to the label.

Discussion: Sub-titles for each paragraph are recommended 

Thank you for the valuable advice, the chapter was divided into subsections.

Reviewer 5 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

First of all I want to congratulate the authors for all the work they have done. Given climate change, the studie of biostimulants effect under field conditions is very important to se the capacity to mitigate this problem. In addition, this study with the use of biostimulants proved to be very promising and could help researchers in the area and could also be a tool to combat abiotic stresses by farmers.

 

Please find my suggestions below.

Line 79: "plant protection products (PPPs)" instead of "PPPs"

Line 26: please put the keywords in alphabetical order

Line 49: "auxins" instead of "axis" 

Line 53: "has" instead "has had"

Figures 3, 4, 5 and 6: the colors in the legensd do not match to the graphics colors

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,   we greatly appreciate the time you have devoted to reviewing our manuscript. Based on your valuable comments, the manuscript has been revised and we believe that this has significantly increased its quality.   Keywords are listed in alphabetical order, typos have been corrected, the legend in the given figure has been modified.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

After carefully revising the format of the paper, it is recommended for direct acceptance

Author Response

Thank you very much.