Response of Clementine Mandarin to Water-Saving Strategies under Water Scarcity Conditions

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Experimental design must be improved

Statistical analyses should be improved

Soil moisture variation should be presented for the growing season

Data interpretation is missing crop physiological aspect

Specific comments are marked on the attached pdf file

Authors should carefully read the manuscript and check all aspect

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachement.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors, 

Thank you for your efforts and corrections are visible. I am ready to accept your manuscript. However, considering the fact that your research were provided during the only one vegetation year (of 2017) the paper has to be classified as communication and/or case report. Thank you. 

Author Response

Please see tha attachement.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript title“ Response of Clementine Mandarin to Water-Saving Strategies Under Water Scarcity Conditions“ is a well-written manuscript except for the statical section. The paper could be very interesting for the reader of Water. I have some issues with this paper and those should be clarified before the paper would be accepted.

 

• Abstract introductory statement is too long, it has to be improved with the more specific rationale of the study. The abstract should have crisp information about aim materials method result and conclusion, which I don't find in the present form of an abstract. 

• Author should have discussed about past work with more citations with the more specific rationale of the study.
• Line no 58 “Because of water scarcity in the region, deficit irrigation (DI) has been proposed as an issue and 59 an innovative strategy for additional water-saving and higher WUE in crops‘ avoid starting the sentence with because.
• Line no 77 rewrite the statement „For many crops, PRD is reported to be a viable irrigation option to increase water use efficiency 78 and productivity with water savings of up to 50% with improved fruit quality and without significant 79 yield losses [33,38-41]“
• Line no 319 what is statically higher?? Consider changing word statically
• Line no 329 ‘Sidi Aissa’ (data not shown)“ What is data not show should provide the data as a supplement file.

 

My main concern of a manuscript is the statical test.

What is the value of n while calculating ANOVA?

The author is writing: The experiment was laid out as a complete block design with 4 replications per treatment.

n Value used in the manuscript is too few to examine normal distribution of variables in the sample, however, Shapiro-Wilk test is appropriate for samples from 3 to 5000 but for the lesser value of n, it receives the non-normal distribution. Thus, two-way ANOVA, that is parametrical test is incorrect for such small samples.

I have doubt with the stat done as the statistic is the backbone of any research study.

I strongly suggest the author to provide me with the raw data file,

• Highlighting the data set that donot follow the normal distribution
• Explaining how ANOVA was calculated for non-normal distribution.

If the author doesn't want to share data then, detail explanation of statics should be given by the author.

Although the study is interesting and could be useful for a certain group of the scientific community, therefore, I would suggest improving the manuscript, giving a chance for the next round, because the subject is interesting.

Author Response

Please see the  attachement.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Minor revision is needed. Specific comments are marked on the attached pdf file

Author Response

Please see the Attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The author has seriously replied and modified the manuscript. I agree with the author justification. I don't think the manuscript needs further revision. I recommend accepting the manuscript in the present form.

Author Response

Please see the Attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

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.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Reviewer Comments on paper submitted to Water, April 2020

Differential Response of Two Clementine Mandarin Cultivars to Water Saving Strategies

 

General

I am not familiar with the area of this paper, and so the following comments should be read with that in mind. I have no criticism of the experimental design or the various measurements reported, and my remarks below stem from a general interest as an economist and one-time editor of an English-language academic journal.

This is a fairly straightforward account of alternative irrigation techniques used with an important crop – though the economic or other (e.g. use of land, labour or water) importance of the cultivars under study is not indicated: only the area of “citrus” in a region of undefined size.

I have a few main areas of presentational concern:

1. The coverage of related results in the literature is rather too extensive for my taste, especially as not all of this coverage relates to the focus of the paper. Thus, the first “Introduction” section takes a full three pages – mainly of literature review – before the “objectives” are reached (on page 4). Surely this length could be reduced, or at least the objectives could be presented sooner so that the reader can learn the focus of the paper without so much effort?
2. The authors frequently use – without explanation – rather different terms for (what seem to me) the same or similar things, e.g. “cultivar”, “selection”, “variety”; “productivity” and “efficiency” (which in economics may mean different things); and, different definitions of “deficit irrigation”. Or, an extra word is sometimes inserted into a term or phrase previously presented more simply. The authors should use the same term for the same thing, unless a simplified version is used – with explanation/definition – for later occurrences, after the first.
3. The five experimental treatments are labelled both as “T1”, “T2”, “T3”, “T4” and “T5”, and as “Control”, “SDI”, “PRD” (two versions) and “RDI”, and one or other of these (sometimes both) are used rather haphazardly throughout the paper. This requires the reader to remember (or to be forced to refer back to) the definitions. It would be easier to avoid the “T” labels (which have no particular logical order), and use labels such as “Cntl”, “SDI”, “PRD-3/4”, “PRD-7” and “RDI”.

Although a few of the “Specific” comments below refer to the general points above, most are minor in nature, and refer to typographical errors (“typos”) or to small slips in the English, which is generally good. Despite their number, it should not take much effort to address these minor points.

 

Specific (by page and line number in review file)

(1, 3): Insert hyphen in “Water-Saving” (where, as here, it is used as an adjective; a hyphen is not needed where “saving” is a noun, e.g. the subject of a sentence)

(1, 11): insert comma (,) after “scarce”

(1, 12): insert “use” between “water” and “efficiency” (note (1,22), and Keywords)

(1, 12-13): “This research” has not yet been defined (nor has “deficit irrigation”: what is this?). Revise perhaps as follows: “Two clementine selections (‘Sidi Aissa’ and ‘Orogrande’) grown in the semi-arid climate of the Souss region of southern Morocco were tested as to the effect of deficit irrigation applied during the second part of fruit growth and up to maturation.”

(1, 17): delete “a duration of”

(1, 16 and 18-19): Why the difference (in English, and perhaps specification) between “with application of 75% crop needs” and “applying 50% water needs during fruit maturation”?

(1, 20): “PRD” is undefined (in the Abstract, which should be self-contained).

(1, 22): does “productivity” differ from “efficiency” used at (1, 12)? One hopes so; but why use both?

(1, 24): why insert “mandarins” here but not from the start?

(1, 30): why is “fresh” inserted here but not in line above? Simplify (with explanation where needed) your terminology, but do not complicate it unless more detailed specification is involved.

(1, 34): “availability are” should be either “availability is” (if measured in aggregate) or “availabilities are” (if measured separately)

(1, 35): “precipitations”: why plural? – unless more than one region or season is meant?

(1, 36): “mountains” plural

(1, 36-37): “This situation” presumably includes overexploitation (which is explained in lines above), so no need for “combined with overexploitation”; and, insert “has” before “led”; and, delete “level” as unnecessary (and ambiguous alongside “availability” used above)

(1, 38-39): do “area” and “region” both refer to the Souss-Massa plain, mentioned above? – make clear. At end of (1, 39), delete “of the”

(1, 42): does “etc.” refer to more things to be “preserved”, or to further (different) “benefits”? Perhaps delete. And, (since you give sources) delete “It is well known that”. Actually, this sentence might be a better start to the paper (i.e. at the start of the paragraph), since it is closer to your topic than general material about Morocco.

(2, 49): insert hyphen in “semi-dormant” (and at line 242). And, when is “winter”, if not “December-January”?

(2, 50): replace “then” by “after which”

(2, 53): insert space before “(“ – and correct similar cases, e.g. at lines 113, 172,, 175-177 (several), and later

(2, 55) insert semi-colon (;) after “fruit”

(2, 59): either “fruit … matures” or “fruits … mature”

(2, 61): probably better as “… the “June drop” occurs in this region in May, during which …”

(2, 62): how can a “drop” defined as a “period” be “enhanced”? – especially if (as a loss) undesirable!

(2, 66-67): “water supply is below crop requirement but with little or no negative effect on crop yield and quality” is rather self-contradictory, even if “optimal” is inserted before “crop requirement”; if yield and quality are not affected, why “below requirement”?

(2, 68): it is rather confusing to give a second (and different?) definition of DI, with no discussion or explanation, e.g. as to which definition you prefer, and will use

(2, 72): “conflicting” is confusing: presumably different DIs (not yet defined) would be expected to give different results?

(2, 74): Define in the same way, i.e. “RDI/SDI/PRD consists of   “; in any case, “Goldhamer (2007) [6]” combines/confuses your two different ways of giving references, i.e. by number (e.g. “[4]”, as in line above), or by author name(s) (e.g. “(Sepaskhah and Ahmadi, 2010)”, as in a few lines below)? Decide on one method (check journal guidelines), and be consistent throughout the paper. And, presumably “phenological” (here, and at lines 82 and 131).

(2, 79-80): insert hyphen in “high-density” (and in “hightemperature” [sic] at 262)

(2, 81): “RDI was tested” (nor references [9] and [10]) does not make clear whether this refers to research studies elsewhere (e.g. Australia, California, as just mentioned) or to the research (to be) reported in this paper. Make clear.

(2, 82): insert “the” before “‘Clementina de Nules’”

(2, 83): I do not like “needs” (here, and elsewhere; and “requirement”) when clearly successful fruit production occurs below these irrigation levels. Presumably something like “optimal level(s)” is meant.

(2, 85): “stage II” uses a different numbering system, i.e. “II” rather than “ii” than used previously; be consistent throughout

(2, 86): insert hyphen in “off-season” (though it may not be clear what this means)

(2, 88-89): “increased fruit juice sugar and acid content” somewhat conflicts with “an increase in sugar and a decline in acid content” at line 58; are both correct? See also at line 106, and perhaps again later.

(2, 89): “Sustained deficit irrigation”: you have introduced “SDI”, so use that; it makes it easier to pick out mentions of the different strategies.

(2, 90): insert comma (,) after “control”. And, does “tree growth” here mean the same as “vegetative growth” used earlier? And see “tree vegetative growth” at line 107!

(2, 91): better as “smaller-sized but not fewer fruits”

(2, 92): “up to 27%” is very vague; what was the mean treatment-control difference? And, insert hyphen in “well-irrigated”. Again, why is the extra phrase (“well irrigated”) inserted alongside “control”, previously used alone?

(2, 94): “et al.” is normally expressed in italics (see also later in paper). And, insert comma after “conditions”. But “environmental conditions” is again vague: do these cover both “climatic factors” and “soil factors” as at lines 42-46?

(2, 95): “(compared to control well irrigated trees)” seems redundant, since all such percentages presumably involve the control treatment, as already said twice, just above.

(3, 97-98): this spells out what was left for the reader to infer at (2, 61) (see above): why not say so at first mention?

(3, 100): will “less than -1.43 MPa” be understood by the average reader?

(3, 101): the jump from physical production measures such as fruit size to “economic return” is rather too great, since the latter involves (presumably) market conditions (timing, prices, etc.) as well as costs (unless “revenue” is meant), and these have not so far been mentioned.

(3, 102): insert “the” before “effect”(s?) – although this whole sentence is rather obvious, and adds almost nothing unless accompanied by some quantitative specification such as timing or yield.

(3, 106) “reduced” (past tense, like the other verbs I this sentence)

(3, 113): insert space before “(“; and, “up to only 50%” is vague

(3, 114-115): “no clear-cut effect was observed on yield”; but this is part of the definition of RDI, as specified at line 75.

(3, 117): why “selection” after one “orange” but not after the other?

(3, 118): insert hyphen(s) in “water-deficit” and in “low-frequency”. But “low frequency deficit irrigation” has not defined: is it a form of PRD (alongside SDI and RDI)?

(3, 119): insert comma after “perspectives”. But, how do the “savings” relate to the two different genotypes or selections?

(3, 120): “Water use efficiency” has not yet been defined, either in “agricultural” or financial” terms.

(3, 196): “with a monthly alternating irrigation cycles”: either delete “a”, or use singular “cycle”

(3, 144): “VPD” is not defined (until line 238)

(3, 147): replace “with” by “and”

(4, 148): insert “and” before “reduced”

(4, 150: replace “reached by” with “imposed upon”

(4, 152): “Furthermore” is unclear within this long section: what is the sequence or evidence or argument?

(4, 152-166): these are important paragraphs since they set out for the first time the reason for, and objectives of, the research to be reported. They should come much earlier, or after a much-shortened Section 1. Also, the Abstract currently mentions only “test effect of deficit irrigation”, not different methods of DI.

(4, 165): insert “the” before “effect”

(4, 166): “relationships” (of what?) is too vague

(4, 186): “where”, not “Where”

(4, 187): insert “the” before “FAO”

(4, 191): “in mid-morning between 9 and 11 am” repeats the necessary information

(4, 192): delete “had”

(5, Table 1): is there a difference between “regime”(s) and “strategy”?; “the two tree” can be deleted (twice); correct one “ETc”; try to align T3-T5 with middle of row contents

(5, 196): I do not think that what follows are “parameters”; perhaps “Observations were taken as follows:”

(5, 197): how does “closest compact field weather station” differ from specification at line 188? And, correct to “ETc” in line below

(5, 200-202): this sentence contains several redundant (repeated) words, which can be deleted

(5, 202-203): Does “Each treatment permanently had one capacitive prob.” mean that there were other (temporary) probes? If not, what does it mean?

(5, 206-207) “Soil samples were taken at 7-day intervals” seems to conflict somewhat with “at known hours of the day” at lines 203-204. At least bring these two phrases together.

(5, 211): replace “Besides that” with “In addition” or similar

(5, 222-223): how does “main fruit harvest period for the cultivars tested” relate to the words at line 213? Do not repeat, especially using different words!

(5, 225): why was salinity measured (and specified here after the “evaluation” item above

(5, 243): insert “and” before “to air”

(6, 246): delete “Changes in” in title of Figure, which shows VPD levels, not changes in VPD. And similarly for some other subsection and figure titles.

(6, 250): insert “during” before “the day”

(6, 256): insert comma after “day” in mid-line

(7, 265): is “soil wilting point” correct? – soils do not wilt!

(7, 267): why does “volumetric water content” apparently replace “SFC”?

(7, 268): delete “Furthermore”; you are presumably going through each T, in turn.

(7, 277): correct “thisperiodwas241”, and the several other cases of similar typos

(7, 278): delete “Treatment” hereabouts; rightly, you do not consider this word necessary after the first “Treatment T1” at line 265. In fact, it would be simpler throughout to use “Control”, “SDI”, “PRD-3/4”, “PRD-7” and “RDI” (defined in Table 1), hence avoiding the rather unhelpful “Tx” labels. See comment on Figure 3 below.

(8, 285): either “the PRD strategy”, or simply “PRD”; and insert “rate” after “fruit drop” in line 284

(8, 286): insert “the” before “fruit drop rate”

(8, 287-288): how does “6-14%” here relate to “did not have any significant effect” at line 284?

(8, Table 2): why is T5 missing in this table? To simplify column headings, “Average fruit” and “Estimated” can probably be deleted (add to table heading if thought necessary).

(8, 299-300): why is T order reversed here? Try to maintain discussion order throughout, unless there are strong reasons for changing order of T2 to T5

(8, 304-306): simpler as “Linear regression analysis for both cultivars indicated that amount of water used explained more than 84% of the variability in fruit weight (in g/fruit) (see Table 4)”

(8, 306-309): it is not clear why you report these results from other researchers here, at least without comparison/confirmation with your own results (or you can do this at the discussion stage)

(9, Figure 3): this requires the reader to remember or check which Treatment is which; better labels would help greatly: see above comment at (7, 278). Capitalise months, e.g. “June”

(9, 310): better as “… strategy on fruit equatorial diameter over time …”

(9, 316-317): better as “It was also greater for PRD with irrigation alternating between the two root system halves at 7-day intervals than 3 to 4-day intervals.”

(9, 318): why is this “noteworthy”? If the previous sentence applies to both selections, then say so directly, in that sentence.

(9, 321-325): again, you report the findings of others without relating to your own work.

(9, 326-328, Table 4): explicitly specify (in title or otherwise) the regression variables x and y (correct the “Y”), and their units (“water/fruit” is unclear). Why is “Relationship” repeated in the row labels? Report SEs for x coefficients, and perhaps give another decimal place (or use a different water unit, to reduce decimal places), since “0.001” and “0.002” are not at all precise.

(10, 332): “of the former regime” is unclear: do you mean one (or both) PRD regimes?

(10, 336) it is unclear why “more important” results are reported after others, especially for T2 after T3 and T4.

(10, 338): “regulated deficit irrigation”: why suddenly spell this out, rather than using RDI as above? Try to be consistent, and simple, in how you refer to treatments etc.

(10, 337 and 341): why are you referring here back to Table 3? Try to lead the reader from table to table without “jumping about” unless necessary.

(10, 359): “during the whole cycle” seems unnecessary. And, replace “Thus” by “As can be seen from Table 7”, since the results here (e.g. 1034 etc.) cannot otherwise be understood. A

(11, 363): why should the reader have to go back to Tables 3 and 4 here?

(11, 364): why “As a result” (of what?); do not start a paragraph like this, unless the “result” clearly follows from the text immediately above (which is not the case here). And, “DI” has not been used since line 70 (so perhaps “DI” can be dropped throughout)

(11, 367): why (re-)use “water use efficiency (WUE)” here when (apparently) “water productivity” (used just above and in Table 7) is meant? And “of 3.3”: delete “of”, and where is “3.3” in Table 7?

(11, 378): correct “Sidi Aissa” in title of Table 7 (and at line 419). Note that “Sidi” occurs in the paper 33 times, but “Aissa” 34 times; check if there is a typo somewhere.

(12, 394): “slower” implies time, which is not (I think) the case here; perhaps “less pronounced” or similar

(12, 393 and 395): why do you say (twice) “for the 0-10 cm soil depth”? – this is anyway obvious from the graph, and seems unnecessary (unimportant?)

(12, 401-403): these two initial sentences (which are important, since they start the “Conclusions” section which many readers will read first) seem strange to me; the first talks of weather without reference to year, location, or even normality, while the second seems to me obvious. Why not start with your results (on “PRD strategies”? – but in any case re-define “PRD” here, for “new” readers.

(12, 406 et seq.): these sentences jump about between comparisons of PRD and SDI, and comparisons between ‘Sidi Aissa’ than for ‘Orogrande’; try to maintain a consistent progressive presentation of treatment effects on yield etc., mentioning either or “both” varieties as necessary.

(13, 416): insert hyphen in “build-up”

(13, 417): “the long run”

(13, 420): “effects” plural; and, “in” not “under”. But, how can annual weather be forecast? – or perhaps treatment can be altered during the year?

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Authors investigated "Differential Response of Two Clementine Mandarin 2 Cultivars to Water Saving Strategies". The topic is quite interesting nut the manuscript seems flat. The introduction is very long with some non essential subsections. It needs to be improved with more focus on the research topic. It is lacking several reference. The material and methods section needs to be divided in subsections. The methodology used is not well described. The fundamental of irrigation water requirement seems neglected. 

The results and discussion: figures should be improved. The results should be better presented.

Conclusion: authors need the present the main findings and not repeating the results.

Reference list: authors should format the references according to the journal guidelines

Specific comment are marked on the attached pdf fine.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Please, press the 'comments' (or "Komentiraj") option on the right vertical toolbar. Thank you.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The manuscript titled “ Differential Response of Two Clementine Mandarin Cultivars to Water Saving Strategies“  by Mohamed El-Otmani and co-authors presents data on respond of cultivars on water Saving Strategies. I find the work interesting and in line with the aim of the journal. I have some concerns about the experimental set-up to justify what the authors claim. Moreover, the rationale behind some of the data presented was not entirely clear. I also recommend to the authors to improve their references by conducting a more extensive review of international literature. Particularly, in the introduction statements are not supported by the references selected by the authors. The logic of some sentences is also questionable. Below are my point to point analysis of the manuscript.

Abstract

• The introductory sentence of abstracted is long, it should be short snd crisp and the author should jump to aim result and discussion.
• The connection is missing between different part of the abstract.
• Hypothesis/ Aim is missing it should be written just after introductory line of the abstract.
• Result and conclusion in the abstract are OK.

 

Introduction

• The introduction section is not clearly written, it is very long it should be to the point. It is like a collection of information with no narrative.
• Many statements in the introduction need to be cited. I cannot point out all of them. My suggestion to the author is to read the introduction carefully make it short and cite the statements where necessary, and I will look at it in the second round of revision. Below is one such example of statement that need to be cited.
• Statment „Agriculture alone consumes about 80% of the freshwater used in Morocco and more than 90% in the Souss-Massa plain, located in the Central southwestern part of the country“. Needs citation
• The author should have discussed past work with more citations with the more specific rationale of the study

 

Discussion

1. Discussion needs attention!
2. Discussion is more like explaining result, at most of the places I missed connection with the past study, the proper explanation is also missing. Very few citations are in the discussion section.