Foliar Potassium Sulfate Application Improved Photosynthetic Characteristics, Water Relations and Seedling Growth of Drought-Stressed Maize
, Muhammad Affan 2, Tauqeer Ahmad Yasir 1, Atique-ur-Rehman 3, Khuram Mubeen 4, Haseeb ur Rehman 3, Muqarrab Ali 4, Farukh Nawaz 1, Ahmed Galal 5, Muhammad Aamir Iqbal 6, Mohammad Sohidul Islam 7, Mohamed El-Sharnouby 8, Muhammad Habib ur Rahman 9 and Ayman EL Sabagh 5,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The dissertation reports on valuable research.
There are a number of spelling mistakes in it that need to be corrected.
I recommend it for publication.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
Thank you for your valuable suggestion and comments for the improvement of current manuscript. We have improved the manuscript based your comments. All the mentioned changes have been incorporated in the manuscript. We appreciate for your warm work earnestly and hope that the correction will meet with approval.
Response to Reviewer 1 comments
The dissertation reports on valuable research.
There are a number of spelling mistakes in it that need to be corrected.
I recommend it for publication
Response: Thanks for encouraging remarks. All the spelling mistakes have been corrected.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Drought stress is one of the most important abiotic stresses influencing crop production. The manuscript talks about the corn plant response to potassium applications when the plants is under different drought stressed conditions. The aim is to see how potassium improve photosynthetic characteristics, water relations and seedling growth in corn under drought. This is a very interesting topic and has significant importance in agricultural production. The author well described the background and also interpreted the table and figures clearly. However, there are some places that can be improved. They are listed below:
- Double check the paper, there are many places that need a space between words such as Line 66, Line 81 and 82, and Line 117; and also some places have extra spaces that needs to be deleted, like in the Title of the paper. Please double check and make sure it looks nice and correct.
- When a term is used for the first time, a full spelling is needed and then other times you can use abbreviation. For example, Potassium, at the beginning, is used, then K is used, then full spelling is used again. It might be better if the author could correct this and also double check other terms that have abbreviations. Thanks.
- Line 90-91: based on my understanding, the sentence should be rewritten as “while balanced K application assisted plants to boost water use efficiency and grain yield.”.
- Line 116-117: why 7.2 is acidic?
- Line 189-190: looks like the Azam under SD has higher RL than Islamabad from Figure 1A.
- For all your figures, they have the error bars but they don’t include a LSD value or p value for your statistics. You could add one LSD or p value for each of your figures.
- For all the tables, it is better to add the p values for *, **, or ***. For example,
|
Symbol |
Meaning |
|
ns |
P > 0.05 |
|
* |
P ≤ 0.05 |
|
** |
P ≤ 0.01 |
|
*** |
P ≤ 0.001 |
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
Thank you for your valuable suggestion and comments for the improvement of current manuscript. We have improved the manuscript based your comments. All the mentioned changes have been incorporated in the manuscript. We appreciate for your warm work earnestly and hope that the correction will meet with approval.
Response to Reviewer 2 comments
Drought stress is one of the most important abiotic stresses influencing crop production. The manuscript talks about the corn plant response to potassium applications when the plants is under different drought stressed conditions. The aim is to see how potassium improve photosynthetic characteristics, water relations and seedling growth in corn under drought. This is a very interesting topic and has significant importance in agricultural production. The author well described the background and also interpreted the table and figures clearly. However, there are some places that can be improved. They are listed below:
- Double check the paper, there are many places that need a space between words such as Line 66, Line 81 and 82, and Line 117; and also some places have extra spaces that needs to be deleted, like in the Title of the paper. Please double check and make sure it looks nice and correct.
Response: All spaces has been corrected (extra space deleted and space has been given where needed)
- When a term is used for the first time, a full spelling is needed and then other times you can use abbreviation. For example, Potassium, at the beginning, is used, then K is used, then full spelling is used again. It might be better if the author could correct this and also double check other terms that have abbreviations. Thanks.
Response: Now it has been corrected throughout the MS
- Line 90-91: based on my understanding, the sentence should be rewritten as “while balanced K application assisted plants to boost water use efficiency and grain yield.”.
Response: Thanks for pointing this out, now sentence has been revised
- Line 116-117: why 7.2 is acidic?
Response: Thanks for pointing this out, now it has been corrected
- Line 189-190: looks like the Azam under SD has higher RL than Islamabad from Figure 1A.
Response: Yes you are right, now it has been corrected
- For all your figures, they have the error bars but they don’t include a LSD value or p value for your statistics. You could add one LSD or p value for each of your figures.
Response: Thanks for your nice suggestion. Normally one thing error bar or LSD is needed for figures, so we have put error bars so no need for LSD.
- For all the tables, it is better to add the p values for *, **, or ***. For example,
|
Symbol |
Meaning |
|
Ns |
P > 0.05 |
|
* |
P ≤ 0.05 |
|
** |
P ≤ 0.01 |
|
*** |
P ≤ 0.001 |
Response: P value has been added in all tables
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors of the reviewed study aimed to investigate the effect of a potassium foliar application on maize plants under drought stress conditions.
Please find my major concerns to improve the study below:
- Line 51: climate
- Line 62: severe
- Line 66 of mineral
- Line 67: add spaces
- Line 81: add spaces
- Line 82: add spaces
- Line 91: delete plants
- Line 96: Why under irrigated conditions? As authors explained above there is no need for foliar application under well watered conditions ( since K can be applied via soil then)
- Line 100: Actually, there is only ONE drought stress level in this study (50% WHC); it should be stated like this
- Line 103: 100% WHC is NOT well watered; this is rather flooded/water stressed; should be stated like this; only 75% WHC can be regarded as well-watered and thus as control plants
- Line 117: add spaces
- Line 118: What´s about other nutrients such as nitrogen?
- Line 123: 100% WHC is not well watered (as mentioned before)
- Lines 124-126: To what extent was different plant growth taken into account (which already occurs through the various treatments) which definitely leads to different pot weights?
- Line 128: Did you use distilled water?
- Line 127 and following: How was it ensured that all plants of one treatment received the same amount of foliar spray? How did you measure the applied amount of foliar spray and what was it? When did you apply the foliar spraying? What kind of wetting agent did you use? How did you exclude that foliar spray dropped into the soil? Did you cover the soil (how?)? How was the spraying applied?
- Figure legends: please explain all abbreviations shown in the figures (such as WW) also in the legends; What is about statistic indications (significant differences) in the figures?
- Figure 1, legend: shoot and root dry weight: g not cm
- Figure 2: Why are A, B, C and D placed in the middles of figures?
- Figure 3: g chlorophyll per what?
- under tables: rather give significance level that "highly significant"
- Why do you show chlorophyll a, b, and total chlorophyll? Where is the relation to potassium?
- Line 387 and following: all statements should me written in a more relative manner as the authors did not analyse most of the parameters here (e.g. root surface area was not measured in this study)
- Line 400: add spaces
- Line 405: generation
- Line 406: dot
- Line 436: O2-; H2O2
- The study contains a lot of spelling mistakes; please check
- Please revise english language style
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
Thank you for your valuable suggestion and comments for the improvement of current manuscript. We have improved the manuscript based your comments. All the mentioned changes have been incorporated in the manuscript. We appreciate for your warm work earnestly and hope that the correction will meet with approval.
Response to Reviewer 3 comments
The authors of the reviewed study aimed to investigate the effect of a potassium foliar application on maize plants under drought stress conditions.
Please find my major concerns to improve the study below:
- Line 51: climate
- Response: Corrected
- Line 62: severe
- Response: Corrected
- Line 66 of mineral
- Response: space added
- Line 67: add spaces
- Response: space added
- Line 81: add spaces
- Response: space added
- Line 82: add spaces
- Response: space added
- Line 91: delete plants
- Response: deleted
- Line 96: Why under irrigated conditions? As authors explained above there is no need for foliar application under well watered conditions ( since K can be applied via soil then)
- Response: sentence has been revised
- Line 100: Actually, there is only ONE drought stress level in this study (50% WHC); it should be stated like this
- Response: sentence has been revised
- Line 103: 100% WHC is NOT well watered; this is rather flooded/water stressed; should be stated like this; only 75% WHC can be regarded as well-watered and thus as control plants
- Response: WHC values were mistakenly written which has been corrected now
- Line 117: add spaces
- Response: space added
- Line 118: What´s about other nutrients such as nitrogen?
- Response: Nitrogen contents has been added
- Line 123: 100% WHC is not well watered (as mentioned before)
- Response: It has been corrected
- Lines 124-126: To what extent was different plant growth taken into account (which already occurs through the various treatments) which definitely leads to different pot weights?
- Response: For this purpose one pot as control was maintained to subtract the plant weight to minimize error in the treatments.
- Line 128: Did you use distilled water?
- Response: Yes distilled water was used
- Line 127 and following: How was it ensured that all plants of one treatment received the same amount of foliar spray? How did you measure the applied amount of foliar spray and what was it? When did you apply the foliar spraying? What kind of wetting agent did you use? How did you exclude that foliar spray dropped into the soil? Did you cover the soil (how?)? How was the spraying applied?
- Response: We have tried our best to apply spray in same manner to all plants to avoid error and same person has sprayed all the treated plants throughout the experiment. To measure amount of water used, we firstly sprayed the controlled plants and then made 1% and 2% solution of K2SO4. Toluene as wetting agent was used.
- Figure legends: please explain all abbreviations shown in the figures (such as WW) also in the legends; What is about statistic indications (significant differences) in the figures?
- Response: Abbreviations has been explained in the figures legends
- Figure 1, legend: shoot and root dry weight: g not cm
- Response: units in the legends has been corrected
- Figure 2: Why are A, B, C and D placed in the middles of figures?
- Response: Placement has been changed and now place aside
- Figure 3: g chlorophyll per what?
- Response: Unit for chlorophyll g FW has been added
- under tables: rather give significance level that "highly significant"
- Response: significance levels been added under tables
- Line 387 and following: all statements should me written in a more relative manner as the authors did not analyse most of the parameters here (e.g. root surface area was not measured in this study)
- Response: Yes we didn’t observe these parameters but found this reason from previous studies and also cited these studies with giving such statements. However, if you recommend then we will revise it in final version
- Line 400: add spaces
- Response: space added
- Line 405: generation
- Response: Corrected
- Line 406: dot
- Response: Dot has been added
- Line 436: O2-;H2O2
- Response: subscript and superscript has been done
- The study contains a lot of spelling mistakes; please check
- Response: whole the manuscript has been read thoroughly and mistakes have removed
- Please revise english language style
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
More information should be added in the manuscript how the foliar spraying was done (as indicated in my first review report).
Statistic indications are still missing in the figures.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
Thank you for your valuable suggestion and comments for the improvement of current manuscript. We have improved the manuscript based your comments. All the mentioned changes have been incorporated in the manuscript. We appreciate for your warm work earnestly and hope that the correction will meet with approval.
Response to Reviewer’s comments
More information should be added in the manuscript how the foliar spraying was done (as indicated in my first review report).
Response: Detailed information has been added regarding foliar spray.
Statistic indications are still missing in the figures.
Response: Statistic indications have been added in the figures.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
