Grafting Enhances Bacterial Wilt Resistance in Peppers

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript has good information about the role of grafting in reducing soil-borne diseases and it can be used as a safety tool to control most soil-borne diseases. Also, the English language of the manuscript is good but there are little mistakes in the manuscript should be corrected.

 - Could you add photos for grafted plants or experiment in supplementary data.

- The authors should mention how many plants were used in experiment.

- Abstract

Page 1, Line 20: Change “ reduced permeability”  to “reducing the permeability”

- Introduction

In page 2,  line 52: change “chemical control of soil-borne disease” to “chemical control of the soil-borne diseases”

In page 2, line 54: change “for control of Meloidogyne spp” to “for controlling of Meloidogyne spp”

- Discussion

In page 10, line 307:   Remove “ and” that written after APX

In page 11, line 328: Change the verb to be “Is” to “are” in the following phrase “that is laid down”

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

Thank you for your useful comments. Based on your and reviewers’ suggestions and comments, we have revised our manuscript, and the detailed corrections are listed below point by point:

-Abstract

Line 20: Change “ reduced permeability” to “reducing the permeability”.

- Introduction

Line 53: Change “chemical control of soil-borne disease” to “chemical control of the soil-borne diseases”.

Line 55: Change “for control of Meloidogyne spp” to “for controlling of Meloidogyne spp”.

-Materials and Methods

Line 97-98: mention how many plants were used in experiment.

-Results

Line 171: add photos for grafted plants.

- Discussion

Line 317: Remove “ and” that written after APX. 

Line 342: Change the verb to be “Is” to “are” in the following phrase “that is laid down” .

Reviewer 2 Report

agriculture-1686139-peer-v1

Abstract:

This section lacks consistency, the statements are bit confusing, there are grammatical errors, roots of the grafted peppers were resistant to R. solanacearum, was it complete resistant or partial, the authors need to clarify this statement. probably related to their increased activities of ROS scavenging enzymes such as glutathione reductase and ascorbate peroxidase, please delete this statement, we speculate that their increased disease resistance was related to reduced permeability of cell membranes to R. solanacearum, resulting from reduced lipid peroxidation, should be shifted to discussion.

 

Introduction:

This section line 3, please rewrite or rephrase the sentence, para second line 3 please add reference here, second para lack references, please add references.

What was the missing gap or why the authors selected this study???

In previous work, we artificially inoculated ‘Weishi’ rootstock and observed its re-sponses to bacterial wilt, no reference of this study

 

Materials and Methods:

 

Cultivars Buyeding (BYD) and Weishi (WS) as rootstocks and Xinfeng 2 (XF) as the scion, what was the pervious response of these cultivars toward wilt disease

 

Data analysis

More elaborative statistically analysis is needed

Results

Well written and elaborative

 

Discussion

Well written

Author Response

Thank you for your useful comments. Based on your and reviewers’ suggestions and comments, we have revised our manuscript, and the detailed corrections are listed below point by point:

Abstract:

 Line17: Change “roots of the grafted peppers were resistant to R. solanacearum”  to “roots of the grafted peppers were partial resistant to R. solanacearum”.

 Line18-19： Delete “probably related to their increased activities of ROS scavenging enzymes such as glutathione reductase and ascorbate peroxidase,”and “we speculate that their increased disease resistance was related to reduced permeability of cell membranes to R. solanacearum, resulting from reduced lipid peroxidation”.

 Line325-329: Shifted to discussion “Grafted pepper plants showed lower levels of lipid peroxidation, probably related to their increased activities of ROS scavenging enzymes such as glutathione reductase and ascorbate peroxidase,we speculate that their increased disease resistance was related to reduced permeability of cell membranes to R. solanacearum, resulting from reduced lipid peroxidation”.

Introduction:

This section, we rephrased the sentence, add reference here. 

Materials and Methods:

 We have no work in the pervious response of these cultivars(BYD, WS ) toward wilt disease.

Data analysis

 Line150-152: More elaborative statistically analysis.

 

Reviewer 3 Report

I just have a few suggestions to contribute to the article.

In the Introduction, the authors should inform the economic importance of pepper in China (area and production value) and the losses that Ralstonia solanacearum represents for the crop in the country. Is pepper currently cultivated in the country without rootstocks or is there already some percentage of cultivation using grafted plants? If so, which rootstocks would be used and for what purposes?

In the materials and methods, the authors could inform who (Research Institute and authors) released the rootstock and scion cultivars used in this research. 

 

Author Response

Thank you for your useful comments. Based on your and reviewers’ suggestions and comments, we have revised our manuscript, and the detailed corrections are listed below point by point:

 

Introduction

 

Line29-38: This section, rephrased the sentence, add reference here.

 

Materials and Methods

 

Line79-81: add “The rootstocks were kindly provided by Professor Ai (Shandong Agricultural University), the scion was obtained in Zaozhuang, Shandong, China.”

 

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors did all the required corrections. I recommend to accept the manuscript in the current form