AMMI Analysis of the Effects of Different Insecticidal Treatments against Agrotis spp. on the Technological Yield from Sugar Beet

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The MS entitled "AMMI Analysis of the Effects of Different Insecticidal Treatments Against Agrotinae on the Technological Yield From Sugar Beet" is a nice piece of work done by the authors. The ms, however, needs a complete and thorough revision.

The information provided is in fact not complete and needs to be updated. More attention should be paid to the following points:
- The current version lacks a good treatment of the already known literature in the Introduction. A good discussion should not only report what has been written in the past but should critically evaluate the literature against the findings.
A good experimental paper should not be a mere listing of many results but needs a critical evaluation of them plus a proper synthesis of the literature.

The organization of the manuscript is somewhat unorganized and the numbering is not very useful in its present form. I recommend the system of subchapters in the Methods as well, but more precise statistical methods are missing - why was PCA used and not CCC or DCA analysis?
I recommend making the figures clearer, and there are no captions for the figures or what the symbols are. The tables also look cluttered and do not show some significant results, often missing SE, etc... I recommend converting to fig - it will be more reader-oriented. 

Citations should be double-checked and formatting should be done strictly according to journal rules. 
Further, typos were consistently found in the ms, and authors are asked to read their ms carefully before submitting. 
Below, I will address some of the other points I found while reviewing the ms:

• it is necessary to improve the introduction - literature base, I recommend to add current literature: 10.1007/s10340-021-01453-5; 10.3390/molecules25225395; 10.3390/molecules24142622; 10.1007/s10340-020-01218-6; 10.1111/j.1469-8137.2011.03987.x
• The paper brings many new aspects and the novelty of the paper is OK, but I would like to invite authors to discuss also more eco-physiological aspects using new references - above.
•  Methods should be described in more detail:
  How many biological and technical replicates were used for the determination of all parameters?
• Additionally, the manuscript needs a strong revision by a professional English writer.

Since the topic of the experimental paper is topical and important, I suggest that the authors reorganize and rewrite the entire manuscript, include more recent literature, and perform a more critical evaluation of their own results. 
- As it stands, the conclusions are rather trivial; the authors should put more effort into the scientific analysis of the peer-reviewed literature. Much of the information could be summarized in clear figures, which would leave room for critical evaluation and deeper analysis of the data.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The MS is devoted to the study of the effect of various insecticidal substances against the pest Agrotinae on the technological yield of sugar beet using a new method of multivariate statistics AMMI. The article is of interest for modern plant biology, it is written in an acceptable language, the methods used are adequate, the goals set have been achieved.
Notes to be corrected.
The section on methods is extremely superficially written.
It is necessary to write in more detail the technology for the extraction of sugars.
It is necessary to indicate how the content of ions in the soil was determined and on which device.
The authors write:
"The technological quality of sugar beet (root weight, polarization, potassium molasses, sodium molasses, -amino-nitrogen, and technological yield) and the yield size were assessed. The experiment was established on clay sands and lessive soils (soil classes IIIa, IIIb and IVa). Soil pH was close to neutral as required for sugar beet, with medium phosphorus (P) content, and high potassium (K) and magnesium (Mg) content. "
This phrase is very general, it is necessary to indicate in detail how and by what the analysis was carried out, on which devices with an indication of the manufacturer.

How and what was the treatment for insects substance, adhesive, processing rate?
It is not clear what means of protection were used in the experiments.

the conclusions are quite superficial, especially the last conclusion should be blackened, this is obvious. 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The peer-reviewed article is a high-quality study based on years of observation. The conclusions were obtained by correct statistical methods. They are credible.

A very important result of the study is to obtain a holistic understanding of the studied agrocenosis: the interaction of a plant-producer with a caterpillar-phytophagous and the modeling human influence under specific conditions of fertility and soil humidity. The multidimensional approach and presentation of the results in the article is the strength of this article, promoting it to a number of the best publications on this topic in the world.

At the same time, the manuscript can be improved by eliminating several shortcomings:

- the Abstract needs to be expanded with interesting formulations given in the Conclusion of the article (by slightly reducing them);

- the introduction needs to be expanded with data on specific species of the Agrotinae subfamily that affect agricultural crops in different regions of the world (this action will increase the citation of this article over the years);

- it is necessary to add a brief digital characteristic to the Material and methods (how many hundreds or thousands of measurements for each characteristic became the basis for calculations) of the original data array, which underwent statistical processing;

- all the numbers in the tables must be rounded in the same type (for example, in the third column of table 1, you need to write not 37.3, but 37.30); there are much more comments on rounding the numbers in the following tables;

- empty cells in tables are not allowed: in this case, an en dash should be typed in the cell;

- it is better to separate the symbols <> = with a space on the right and on the left (for example, in Table 1 or on line 106);

- the reliability of p is better to write everywhere with a capital letter, as it is done in a note of Table 1, but not on line 106;

- I recommend that authors round % to tenths in the entire text, and not to hundredths (for example, lines 113, 117);

- fonts in all figures should be non-bold, the size should be approximately equal to the size of the letters of the main test of the article; a sharp difference in the size of fonts is unacceptable, for example, on the axes of Figure 1;

- the names of figures and tables are not self-sufficient for understanding by the readers; I recommend giving a detailed explanation of all abbreviations under the first figure; under the subsequent figures it is necessary to write only new explanations and the inscription “see fig. one"; the tables also require detailed explanation.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have addressed all comments and significantly improved the quality of the article.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your positive recommendations and thorough evaluation of the manuscript.

Kind regards,

Authors