The Effect of Nutrient Source and Beneficial Bacteria on Growth of Pythium-Exposed Lettuce at High Salt Stress

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The comments and suggestions are incorporated in the attached Word document

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

The comments and suggestions are incorporated in the attached Word document

Author Response

Dear Editor,

 

Please, find enclose the revised version of the manuscript water-2390811, previously titled “The effect of nutrient source and beneficial bacteria on growth of Pythium-exposed lettuce at high salt concentrations”, retitled “The effect of nutrient source and beneficial bacteria on growth of Pythium-exposed lettuce at high salt stress”.

 

Thank you for your assessment of this manuscript and many thanks to the two reviewers for their constructive comments. The comments were a great help and the suggested changes/clarifications raised were pondered and addressed into the new version of the manuscript.

All revised sections are marked in red with track changes.

To facilitate the evaluation of this revision, we provide our responses to each reviewer’s comment below in blue.

We hope to meet the approval of reviewers now.

 

We look forward to reading from you and to responding to any further questions and comments you may have.

 

Best regards,

 

Leonardo Bruni

On behalf of all Authors

 

Comments Reviewer One

Comments and Suggestions for the Author

The manuscript entitled “The effect of nutrient source and beneficial bacteria on growth of Pythium-exposed lettuce at high salt concentrations” was to investigate the growth of lettuce in nutrient solutions with elevated salinity, and different mixtures of potential plant growth-promoting microorganisms.

In my opinion, this research article is worth to be published but needs some modifications (minor revision) before the manuscript can be accepted for publication. This work is interesting and I recommend it for publication in the “Water” journal after the following minor corrections/revisions are addressed. The following comments will help to increase the quality of the manuscript before publication.

Following are the comments and suggestions which need to be addressed.

1. The abstract should be reorganized. It should be more informative. Add some more important numerical data (experimental results) in the abstract section instead of general statements.
2. The innovation and the importance of this work are not highlighted in the abstract and introduction sections. The authors should incorporate the novelty and importance of the present research work in the manuscript.

Thank you for the recommendations, the abstract was improved taking into consideration the points number 1 and 2.

3. The utility of this study should be highlighted in the manuscript, why the author has chosen the Pythium-exposed lettuce a high alkalinity salt solution? The introduction section should also be more informative.

Thank you for the suggestions, the introduction was modified (LL 71-73, 97-100) in order to better clarify the frame around the study.

4. The authors should compare the specific experimental data obtained with the results of the authors of other works on the growth of lettuce in nutrient solutions in the tabular column format.

We appreciate the suggestion, however, we think that a similar table would better fit a systematic review-article rather than an original research article. Our study assessed comprehensively many parameters, and this would imply that we would need to construct very extensive tables which would overburden the manuscript. We hope that we have your understanding.

5. In the statistical studies – The authors should show the (a) regression model equation and (b) interaction between the response variable and independent variables in the form of contour and response surface plots.

The equations used are reported at LL 243 and 245. We believe that contour and response surface plots would be very informative with a higher number of replicates. In our case, aiming to give a first insight into lettuce grown in high-salt waters with either organic or inorganic nutrient sources, the study used a number of replicates that would be too scarce for the suggested kind of statistical analysis.

6. Why the authors did not add the economic assessment/cost analysis section in the present research studies? The cost analysis section should be added to analyze the growth of lettuce in high alkalinity salt solution

We agree with the reviewer that a cost analysis will be necessary in future studies assessing the economic feasibility of growing vegetables in nutrient poor/salt-rich waters, however, the study aimed to a first insight into lettuce grown in such conditions. A sentence has been added in the Conclusions (LL 629-631).

7. The authors should explain the basic principle and show the mechanism of the bacterial growth of lettuce in high-alkalinity salt solutions.

Thank you for the important input, LL 86-91 of the Introduction section were expanded. We decided however to limit the description of the bacterial growth in lettuce in a high-salt solution because our work did not directly analyse the bacterial community of the system.

8. The quality of the figures should be improved. To increase the validity of your represented data the authors need to repeat them with at least 3 replications and then add error bars to your data point in almost all presented graphs in this study.

Apologies for the inattention, standard deviations were added in the figures.

9. The authors should compare the water quality monitoring data concerning the central pollution control board standard parameter.

We appreciate the comment, however, considering that the AE came from a running aquaculture plant subject to Swiss legislation and that the HP was formulated mimicking the AE, we believe that the nutrient solutions used in our study were within the limits of normal agricultural practices.

10. In the present manuscript, the authors should check for language corrections. English needs to be carefully checked and again polished.

We thank the reviewer for the suggestion. The text had been checked by a native British speaker before the first submission, however, it was checked again by the authors.

 

The authors should revise the manuscript and add point-wise replies to the reviewer's comments in a separate Word/PDF document. I believe that the manuscript can be accepted for publication with the above corrections.  This research article can be considered and will be accepted for publication in “water” journal after a minor revision.

We would like to express our gratitude to the Reviewer for the positive feedback.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The ms water-2390811 with title of The effect of nutrient source and beneficial bacteria on growth of Pythium-exposed lettuce at high salt concentrations investigate an interesting topic, but the authors have to revise their ms and significantly improve it before it can be accepted in such journal.

Title: Use “stress” instead of “concentrations”

L13-16 reduce to the text of background into one sentence, please

In abstract: please try to make the text concerning your treatments clear, then present some key results of your findings, and at the end present one sentence for your conclusion.

Keywords: please use one of sludge or wastewater. Also, add the name of the plant that was used in the current study

L74-78 add suitable citations for this text

The authors investigated some treatments for sludge and wastewater, but I did not see any text in the introduction section about these two things. Please add one paragraph or few sentences about sludge and wastewater using suitable citations or these ones: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2019.104647 & https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2013.02.004

L18-19 please add this suitable ref: https://doi.org/10.3390/plants9121783

T3: sludge from the drum filter of the aquaculture farm? Why did you decide to work on this type of sludge? Why not other types?

T3 sludge from a wastewater, was the source of sludge from domestic or industrial materials?

In the material and methods section, please add all original citations for the used methods.

L270-280 Abbreviations, you can not repeat such text many times. Instead, you can present it once, then under other Tables, For abbreviations See Table 4.

Tables can be presented in another way, vertical should be horizontal and vice versa.

Figures have to be improved because were not well presented.

L381 wrong format to cite this ref: Yang and Kim (2020)

 

 

Discussion, I recommend the authors to focus on the mechanisms of their treatments and their roles in mitigating the salt stress. In addition, I recommend the authors to cite which Table or Figures the test is for in the discussion section.

In Conclusions, authors should go straight forward and present what they want to say for readers based on their findings. Please, do not present background text or other common text, this means that 50% of the text in the Conclusions should be removed.

In addition, you can not say that the present study was the first insight into lettuce …, revise

References: please follow the format of the journal

 

 

There are some typos errors

Author Response

Dear Editor,

 

Please, find enclose the revised version of the manuscript water-2390811, previously titled “The effect of nutrient source and beneficial bacteria on growth of Pythium-exposed lettuce at high salt concentrations”, retitled “The effect of nutrient source and beneficial bacteria on growth of Pythium-exposed lettuce at high salt stress”.

 

Thank you for your assessment of this manuscript and many thanks to the two reviewers for their constructive comments. The comments were a great help and the suggested changes/clarifications raised were pondered and addressed into the new version of the manuscript.

All revised sections are marked in red with track changes.

To facilitate the evaluation of this revision, we provide our responses to each reviewer’s comment below in blue.

We hope to meet the approval of reviewers now.

 

We look forward to reading from you and to responding to any further questions and comments you may have.

 

Best regards,

 

Leonardo Bruni

On behalf of all Authors

 

Comments Reviewer Two

 

The ms water-2390811 with title of The effect of nutrient source and beneficial bacteria on growth of Pythium-exposed lettuce at high salt concentrations investigate an interesting topic, but the authors have to revise their ms and significantly improve it before it can be accepted in such journal.

Title: Use “stress” instead of “concentrations”

We agree with the reviewer, the title was accordingly changed.

L13-16 reduce to the text of background into one sentence, please

In abstract: please try to make the text concerning your treatments clear, then present some key results of your findings, and at the end present one sentence for your conclusion.

Thank you for the suggestions, the abstract was thoroughly changed and hopefully improved.

Keywords: please use one of sludge or wastewater. Also, add the name of the plant that was used in the current study

The Latin name of the lettuce was added, while we think that retaining both “sludge” and “wastewater” would improve the visibility of the study, as each term, although partially overlapping with the other, is used in a specific research field.

L74-78 add suitable citations for this text

The new LL 97-99 were improved to better explain the reason why root-rot pathogens can easily move through the nutrient solution.

The authors investigated some treatments for sludge and wastewater, but I did not see any text in the introduction section about these two things. Please add one paragraph or few sentences about sludge and wastewater using suitable citations or these ones: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2019.104647 & https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2013.02.004

We appreciate the Reviewer’s suggestion, however we do not understand how two papers of Dr. Seleiman, on sludge as fertiliser or as source of mycorrhiza, would benefit our study, which touches the topic of administering of beneficial bacteria originating from either commercial probiotics, sludge, or aquaculture effluent.

LL79-80 include now three references of the sludge-origin of potential PGBM.

L18-19 please add this suitable ref: https://doi.org/10.3390/plants9121783

The old LL 18-19 are part of the abstract.

T3: sludge from the drum filter of the aquaculture farm? Why did you decide to work on this type of sludge? Why not other types?

The aquaculture farm where the material originated from generates sludge by using a drum filter, which is a very widely used method of mechanical filtration. Information on the need of studying the possible re-uses of aquaculture effluents (and sludge) is addressed in the Introduction section (LL 57-64, LL 79-80, LL 103-104).

T3 sludge from a wastewater, was the source of sludge from domestic or industrial materials?

Thank you, L141 now contains the information.

In the material and methods section, please add all original citations for the used methods.

We thoroughly checked the manuscript and added a reference at L 234. We are ready to make any further change if needed.

L270-280 Abbreviations, you can not repeat such text many times. Instead, you can present it once, then under other Tables, For abbreviations See Table 4.

Thank you for the suggestion, the table foot elements were accordingly changed.

Tables can be presented in another way, vertical should be horizontal and vice versa.

We appreciate the comment, however we prefer the actual presentation. We ask for the Editor’s opinion.

Figures have to be improved because were not well presented.

Thank you for the valuable suggestion, the figures were changed.

L381 wrong format to cite this ref: Yang and Kim (2020)

We think the reference is cited according to the Journal’s guidelines.

Discussion, I recommend the authors to focus on the mechanisms of their treatments and their roles in mitigating the salt stress. In addition, I recommend the authors to cite which Table or Figures the test is for in the discussion section.

We are grateful for the recommendation, although our study did not compare salt-stressed plants with a control without salt, therefore it would be difficult to insert a commentary on the mechanism of salt in our plants without having a control we can use to make comparison.

In Conclusions, authors should go straight forward and present what they want to say for readers based on their findings. Please, do not present background text or other common text, this means that 50% of the text in the Conclusions should be removed.

We are sorry to disagree. The background text present in the Conclusions (25 lines long) is shown in the three LL 632-634, and we think it would be awkward to delete those lines.

In addition, you can not say that the present study was the first insight into lettuce …, revise

We apologise for the unconcise wording, we amended this in L 617.

References: please follow the format of the journal

Thank you, the references were checked.

There are some typos errors

We thank the reviewer for the suggestion. The text had been checked by a native British speaker before the first submission, however, it was checked again by the authors. We believe that we managed to remove all errors.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The ms has been improved based on my comments, and thanks to the authors.

SOme minor revisions are needed