Lupinus mutabilis Breeding in the Andes of Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia: A Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In the review article entitled “Lupinus mutabilis breeding in the Andes of Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia: A Review” authors reviewed about tarwi or chocho, which is an important agricultural species cultivated in South America since ancient times. Authors presented the work carried out by public breeding programs of L. mutabilis at national agricultural research institutes, universities, and other institutions in Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. This review paper will help breeders to develop new varieties that are high yielding, suitable for mechanized harvesting, have a low content of alkaloids or other anti-nutritional properties, and resistance to anthracnose (Colletotrichum acutatum). The authors put their sincere efforts in writing the important review article but few minor corrections need to incorporate.

Line 35: Which part of America?

Line 44: Write the name of the crops fits well in its intercropping

Line 51: is it a proven study on human beings that L. mutabilis, as part of a healthy diet, prevents and treats metabolic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases? Or these are the animal studies? Please modify the sentence.

Line 59: the flour is mainly used in the preparation of protein-rich and gluten-free bread? How gluten free? What are the advantages of gluten-free bread?

Line 78-79: The result of the symbiosis process is an important contribution of nitrogen fixation in the soil, in ranges from 150 to 500 Kg ha-1 [6,7,29]. Remove the entire sentence. Already mentioned in Introduction part.

Line 87: Figure 1. (a) Prominent and no prominent stem of tarwi; (b) Prominent and no prominent stem of tarwi. What is the difference between these two?

Line 370: The high content of quinolizidine alkaloids in the seed is one of the most important factors that have slowed down the potential use of this crop? How? What are the negative impacts of quinolizidine alkaloids?

Line 417: plants without branching have been obtained through mutation induction? Is benchless trait suitable for mechanized harvesting?

Line 419: gene editing for which traits? Is there any genomic information available for this crop?

I wish good luck to authors for writing nice review paper.

Author Response

Thank you for his/her recommendation

"Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The review described breeding programs of Lupinus mutabilis crop improvement in the area of Andes of Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. However, there needs to be a lot of improvement in the flow of the review by categorizing the review into specific crop improvement programs, e.g., Yield, nutritional, and any other quality improvements, or biotic and abiotic stress tolerant traits or any agronomic traits. Then, they can specify in which area these breeding programs have been conducted and the relevance of why they performed the specific breeding program in a particular area to address what kind of problems—also, English and punctuation corrections are needed.

Title:  Lupinus mutabilis, please italicize the botanical name.

Line 11: Abstract:  Lupinus mutanilis, please check the spelling.

Introduction: Are these (tarwi/ chocho or tarhui or tauri) common names or varieties name? Specify the significance of these varieties in the introduction. Lines 146-152, mentioned some specific characters based on the region. But in the manuscript, Tarwi is used as the most common, so explain this somewhere to avoid confusion. Better stick to a single common name throughout the manuscript.

Provide some family details of the Lupinus mutabilis and what kind of best nutritional or any other traits compared to other legumes.

Line 47-48: Be consistent in using the upper or lower case for the words (fiber, Iron, and Zinc) in the manuscript.

The introduction is missing the significance and rationale of the review and how this review varies with previous information.

Lupinus mutabilis once mentioned the acronym (L. mutabilis) why do authors again mention the full name of the species everywhere in the manuscript? There are a lot of uniformity issues in the manuscript. Please improve it to be simple and straightforward for the readers (audience).

Line 51: Full stop.

Line 70-75: The references are not in order after 18; they cited 28 after that 27. It needs to be rectified.

As mentioned above, the review needs to be categorized into specific crop improvement programs, e.g., Yield, nutritional, and any other quality improvements, or biotic and abiotic stress tolerant traits or any agronomic traits. Under these sections, the significance of the problem to specific regions and why they have bred that variety.

Specify the physiological, agronomic traits and genetic resources, such as markers, SNPs, and candidate genes, that are identified from any genomics, GWAS, transcriptome, or any other omics studies in crop improvement programs.

Also, are there any biotechnological approaches, such as transgenics and genome editing studies in crop improvement of Lupinus mutabilis and how they can be used to breeding programs?

Comments on the Quality of English Language

English, uniformity, and punctuation corrections are needed.

Author Response

Thank you for his/her recommendation

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf