Morpho-Physiological Response of Four Native Accessions of Phaseolus vulgaris L. Subjected to Water Stress under Greenhouse Conditions in Northeastern Peru

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

In my opinion, the manuscript and the research conducted address a very important topic in modern agronomy. Water shortages around the world are a serious problem limiting crop yields. Thus, rainfall shortages pose a serious threat to global food security. In the context of the manuscript, I have the following suggestions and comments:

Introduction

In my opinion, the introduction section is well organized. It adequately introduces the research problem undertaken in the research carried out by the Authors. Minor suggestions that would certainly improve the introduction are: Adding a few lines on the interaction between bean development and water stress conditions (at what stages it is most sensitive to deficiencies). I would also suggest adding information on what percentage yield losses can be caused by water stress, this could be completed with the manuscripts of other Authors already cited.

Materials and methods

I have quite a few questions for this section:

L101 I would suggest supplementing with information on why exactly these varieties were chosen.

L164 Where did the irrigation water come from? Was the chemical composition researched? What time was irrigation applied during the growing season?

L165-167 This sentence should be moved to the introduction section. This is not the appropriate place.

L175 Were other environmental factors analyzed during the experiment? Temperature, humidity?

L181 I understand that measurements were made throughout the period on the same plants? Additionally, I am puzzled why all traits except yield were evaluated on 5 plants when there were 10 repetitions?

L204 What equipment was used to conduct the evaluation?

Results

In my opinion, this section needs improvement. The description of the results obtained in my opinion is insufficient. I would suggest presenting the percentage changes in values between treatments and focusing primarily on the tolerance of the analyzed varieties at different irrigation levels since this seems to me to be the key issue of the manuscript. Certainly, recipients will be most interested in the decreases in individual traits under irrigation reduction as this will present the tolerance of varieties to water stress. Additionally, were yield quality traits analyzed? I understand that the authors focused on morphological traits, but other traits, such as protein content, are also important from the point of view of agricultural practice. If these data were published in another manuscript I would suggest citing it if not add this trait.

L223 (Table 2) With some variants the standard deviation is not given, what is the reason for this?

L249 I suggest you do a correlation analysis and complete the manuscript with this information

L252 (Figure 3) What do the numbers on the vertical axis mean? The question also applies to the other figures

Discussion

In my opinion, the section is very unevenly written the initial part of it I consider inadequately written and in need of thorough improvement. On the other hand, I consider the subsequent sections from verse 313 onward to be quite good. I believe that the entire section should be written in terms of focusing on the discussion of the resistance of varieties to reducing the level of available water, comparing it to the results of similar research work and finally trying to identify the causal mechanisms. Additionally:

L290 I believe that the reasons through which plants due to lack of water are lower are much more than just a reduction in water status.

L297 I don't quite see the connection between the cited manuscript. Since the other authors evaluated irrigation at different stages and in the authors' study I presume that irrigation was constant. The best results were obtained at 100% because there was the most water which is one of the basic elements required for proper plant development.

L313-334 This is a very good part of the discussion. In my opinion, the entire section should be written in this tone.

Conclusions

In my opinion, only from L373 are the conclusions, the rest to repeat the results. I suggest rebuilding the section with a brief summary of the results, indicating recommendations for agricultural practice, and recommendations for future research in this area.

Good luck

Author Response

 "Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This study is limited to the evaluation of only four native P. vulgaris accessions, which represents a low number of genotypes. The manuscript also lacks depth in its analysis, with insufficient data to draw robust conclusions. Additionally, the experimental methodology is not adequately detailed, making it difficult to assess the validity of the findings.

Here are my comments:

Abstract

1-      Line 19: replace “irrigation frequencies” with “irrigation treatments”

2-      Line 20: please remove this sentence “The research was carried out at the EEA-Amazonas of the National Institute for Agrarian Innovation (INIA).

3-      The abstract just focused on the accession PER10035, neglecting the  response of the other accessions.

Introduction

1-      The introduction was not yet well written, and it is too briefly presenting the subject and research problem.

2-      Line 60:  the authors refer to proline accumulation, yet they did not measure this trait in their study.

3-      Line 65 : the authors discuss the application of biostimulants, which is irrelevant to the current study.

4-      The authors should add new paragraph about the physiological response of P. vulgaris under different irrigation treatment.

Materials and Methods

1-      Line 100: The authors should explain why they selected such a low number of genotypes for evaluation. The selection criteria based on "appearance and health" require further elaboration to clarify how these factors influenced the choice of genotypes.

2-      Line 124: Clarification needed on the experimental design. How many bags were used per replicate within each of the 10 replications mentioned for each treatment?

3-      Lines 157-163: This section lacks sufficient detail and clarity. The authors should provide the reference used for calculating the water amount required for each treatment. I think this is not the corrected  method to calculate

4-      Line 165: please double check??

5-      Line 171: The statement regarding weekly plant height measurements is inaccurate. Plant height is measured only once, at harvest time.

6-      Line 203: Chlorophyll index or : Chlorophyll content??

7-      Line 205: The methods and timing for measuring stomatal density and stomatal index require more detailed explanation.

Results

1-      The results section should begin with an analysis of variance (ANOVA) to demonstrate the effects of both treatments and cultivars.

2-      In Table 1 the name of the treatment should be included.

3-      To enhance table presentation, the authors should restructure the tables by adding a column for variety names, with the three treatments listed under each variety

Discussion

Please concentrate on the key findings from this research and ensure that the scientific problem is ultimately addressed. The authors should explore potential reasons for the differences between accessions under different treatments.

 

Conclusions

This section requires enhancement. I recommend adding a couple of sentences that discuss areas where future studies should be focused

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Moderate editing of English language required.

Author Response

 "Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Water deficit is amongst the greatest threats on agricultural production and food safety. Thus, if is of great importance to study the responses of different crops to drought stress worldwide. In this work, the authors employed four accessions Phaseolus vulgaris L. in Peru as the study crops and experimentally revealed their morphological and physiological indicators responses to drought stress. Generally speaking, this is a completed work, but I have to say that, there are a series of severe shortcomings that restricted the paper quality. Unfortunately, I don’t think this paper can meet the requirement of Agronomy-basel. My major concerns are as follows:

(1) I cannot see enough scientific innovation of this work. I admit that this work is meaningful to some extent, but merely for Peru, without extensive enlightenment for broader areas. In your Introduction, I didn’t see the real research gap in the field of common bean responding to drought stress. You just stated that the responses of the four accessions to drought deserve exploration, but you didn’t convince us why this study has enough scientific value, especially for those international readers. Did you employed more advanced monitoring method? Or using more comprehensive analysis method? Or, did you get a few interesting and inspirational conclusions? I don’t think so.

(2) Only one-year experiment was performed and the monitoring plant indicators are common. As I mentioned before, this is a completed work, but it is sample, too. Under this conditions, what I hope to see is a more innovative research idea.  Conversely, if the innovation of your paper is limited, then you should present abundant research contents, from experimental observation to data analysis.

(3) Another large concern is about your established “water stress treatment”. As you described in Lines 160-164, irrigation amounts of 100% FC, 50%FC, and 25%FC were employed to achieve control treatment, moderate drought, and severe drought, respectively.  First, I am wondering why 50%FC can indicate a drought stress for all the four crops. As we know, different crops have different threshold for drought stress. Then, you said these irrigations were performed till reaching the permanent wilting point, but you did not describe the details. Do you have dynamic monitoring of soil water contents? If so, you should display the necessary soil water content observations.

(4) The Discussion section should be written more logically. In the current version, the parts in the Discussion are in scraps and lack of logic. For instance, some paragraphs only have one sentence, which seems casual. So, I strongly suggest the authors to use sub-headings for Discussion; in this way, the discussion contents can be classified into different topics.

(5) The introduction section should also be improved. You should focus on the specific issue of your study. For instance, Lines 65-70 is relevant to bean drought stress, but how was it related to this paper?

 

In addition, I also provide some other comments or suggestions:

-Lines 20-21, this sentence is unnecessary for Abstract

-Lines 48-49, if water stress include both drought and waterlogging, why you employed the term “water stress” to represent “only drought” throughout your paper

 -Table 1. I don’t think it is convenient to use T1~T12. Instead, I think the original “A?B?” would be more easy to understand in results analysis.

-Lines 205-209. Please provide details on the measurement of stomata indicators. These parameters are sensitive and often different to accurately observed, so please describe the instrument and how you performed.

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Moderate editing of English language required.

Author Response

 "Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

thank you for addressing my suggested changes to the manuscript. In my opinion, the manuscript has been revised accordingly. 

In future studies, I suggest controlling the temperature and humidity parameters I mentioned because they also influence the response of plants in limited water availability. 

Congratulations

Author Response

"Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

The authors have made significant progress in addressing most of the suggestions for improving the manuscript. However, some remaining points still need further refinement.

1.     Line 23: Please provide the full names of the accessions instead of using A2 and A3.

2.     Line 97: Please remove the current text and instead include 'studying the association among the studied traits' as the second aim

3.     Line 168: The method used to determine the field capacity still requires further clarification. Please provide the references or equations used.

4.     The methods used for measuring foliar area, fresh biomass, dry biomass, and yield per plant require further clarification.

5.     For Table 2 and Table 3, please put the Irrigation treatments as factor A and the accession as factor B.

6.     Line 327: Why did the authors use Spearman correlation not person correlation? Spearman used for ordinal data or when the relationship between variables is not linear.

7.     In the discussion section, please remove the sub-title.

8.     Most of the cited references in the discussion are old and need updated like reference number 20, 21,27, 33, 43, 44, etc.

9.     The conclusion should be brief,  summarizing the key findings and implications of the study without unnecessary details.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

 Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

"Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I admit that the authors have made considerable revisions in the 1st round review. Although I am not satisfied with the relatively limitation about scientific innovation in this work and I know it is impossible to address in a short time, the authors have improved the quality of the paper in other ways. 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

 Minor editing of English language required.

Author Response

"Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have made significant improvements to the paper, and I am now able to recommend it for publication.