Initial In Vitro Assessment of the Antifungal Activity of Aqueous Extracts from Three Invasive Plant Species
, Stephen J. Novak 3,*, Mahmoud Fictor 4, Yasser S. Mostafa 1, Saad A. Alamri 1, Sulaiman A. Alrumman 1, Mostafa A. Taher 5,6, Mohamed Hashem 1,7 and Rafat Khalaphallah 4
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript, entitled: "Inhibition of pathogenic fungi using extracts from three invasive plant species initial in vitro assessments", deals with a promising trend in the development of alternative fungicides. The use of plant extracts against plant pathogenic fungi has been researched for a long time. In this research, the antifungal effect of various concentrations of water-based leaf extracts of 3 invasive plant species in the Middle East region is investigated (Prosopis juliflora, Ipomoea carnea, and Leucaena leucocephala). The target pathogens are Fusarium solani, Alternaria solani, and Colletotrichum circinans.
The results of the research provide preliminary data for the in vitro effectiveness of plant extracts of various concentrations. These can form the basis for later outdoor uses. The description of the methods used is accurate. To detect in vitro inhibition, changes in several parameters characterizing the growth and sporulation of fungal colonies were measured.
In the introductory part, I definitely miss the brief presentation of the invasive plants used, as well as the general characterization of their distribution in the given region.
The presentation and discussion of the results is adequate, but at the same time it would have increased the visibility, e.g. graphical representation of the results of Table 3.
Author Response
See attached file.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.doc
Reviewer 2 Report
The reflections to the reviewer comments are correct. Line 151 study of fungal radial growth: In the future would better to use poisoned agar plates, it means not only put active compounds to the center of the plate, but mixed it to the hand heat agar just before loading the Petri-dishes. When put only the center of the plates who knows the real absorbed diameter of the active ingredients. Line 234 please remove the space between 325 and °C. Line 250, Table 2, too many stripes can be found in the first column at the plant names in the case of Ipomoea carnea and Leucaena leucocephala, please remove it.
Author Response
See attached file.
Author Response File: Author Response.doc
Reviewer 3 Report
The comments file is attached.
Comments for author File: Comments.docx
Author Response
See attached file.
Author Response File: Author Response.doc
Reviewer 4 Report
1. The language and grammar of the manuscript have ample scope for improvement.
2. Line 67-70: Consider the sentences, “The antimicrobial…fungi” and “Plant extracts…mechanisms”. Separate references may be given for these observations.
3. Line 144-145: Consider the sentence, “This leaf material…grinder.” Since the temperature of drying is not specific, at least the maximum temperature of the place of study during the period of drying may be provided. It could be obtained from the repository of the local weather data.
4. Line 147-149. Consider the sentence, “Three water-based…paper.” The pore size of Whatman filter paper No. 1 is 11µm. Do you intend to have the extracts sterilized through this?
5. Please refer the method employed for the assessment of growth inhibition of the test fungi by the plant extracts. As much as I can see, this is none of the three techniques employed for the purpose, viz. agar well diffusion technique, inhibition zone technique and poisoned food technique. Also, please indicate how could you determine that the extract has been absorbed by the PDA? Was it just the visible disappearance of the droplet on the surface or a specific period of time for which the extract was kept on the PDA? Also, please mention the control in the experiment.
6. Line 166-168: What you write negative control is, in fact, the real control (or control) and the positive control is, in fact, the treatment. Please make corrections accordingly. Or, if you have anything else like positive and negative controls, please elaborate in the manuscript.
7. Line 170-172: What do you mean by the “end” of the experiment? Is it the day of observation? Or anything else?
8. Line 187: What do you mean by “controls”? were the controls more than one? If so, please specify them.
Author Response
See attached file.
Author Response File: Author Response.doc
Round 2
Reviewer 4 Report
The suggested modifications seem to be incorporated.
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
The authors of this manuscript analysed botanicals from three (for Saudi Arabia) invasive plants for their potential as low-cost fungicides in agriculture. This topic is of high interest due to increased health and environmental concerns of chemical pesticides and the resulting need for adequate, sustainable and save alternatives.
In general, the manuscript has flaws regarding journal layout, English language and scientific soundness. Some of them, but not all, were marked and described in the reviewed manuscript. For instance, instead of percent as concentration value use weight per liter so the reader knows exactly how much you used. Write scientific names of organisms in full length once and after you abbreviate it. The table designs are inconsistent.
Regarding the introduction, more relevant references should be provided, especially on the chosen Plants Prosopis juliflora, Ipomoea carnea, and Leucaena leucocephala. Are there preliminary studies on these plants? In addition, the reader does not know why the pathogens Fusarium solani, Alternaria solani, and Colletotrichum circinans were chosen as test pathogens.
The research design is in some parts, especially the ‘Pathogenicity test’, not well and clearly enough described. For instance, where exactly did you collect the fungal strains? You determined the genus by morphological structures, but how did you determine the species?
Provide more details on the extraction process. Did you cooked the leaves in the water?
I do not understand the purpose of the ‘Pathogenicity test’ in context with the plant extracts. In addition, you only show pictures but no number of the results.
Four parameters were chosen to determine the antifungal activity of the extracts: (1) fungal growth, (2) spore formation, (3) spore germination and (4) total biomass. I think two (fungal growth and germination rate) in vitro test are enough to determine the efficacy of the extracts against the pathogens. It would be more interesting to see the effect in an in vivo system, e.g. leaf discs or whole plants. I am also missing a calculation of the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of the extracts, which is crucial when studying the efficacy of possible pesticides.
How many times did you repeat the experiments? If you did it only once with three replicates, then it is to less.
The illustration of some results could be improved. For instance, the results of the growth test would be more clear in a bar diagram. The diameter mean of the negative control should be provided. In addition, how can you receive a higher inhibitory effect [%] with an increasing mean diameter growth? Are the differences in fungal growth statistically significant compared to the negative control?
I do not understand the results shown in table 4 or ALG in general. What is it? There is not description in the M&M section.
The conclusion of the results are also not well described. The first passage is even redundant since it only describes the three fungi used in this study. The last three sentences are about the “results” of the ‘Pathogenicity test’, however, as I mentioned above, there is no connection to the analysed extracts and there are no real results, but only pictures of the infected seeds. Furthermore, the conclusion on the LC-MS results is missing.
Due to the severity and frequency of the flaws, it is not possible to show or discuss all problems in the manuscript. I highly encourage the authors to rethink their approach when analysing the plant extracts. I also recommend the use of an English language editing service.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1 Comments
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Point 1: In general, the manuscript has flaws regarding journal layout, English language, and scientific soundness. Some of them, but not all, were marked and described in the reviewed manuscript. For instance, instead of percent as concentration value use weight per liter so the reader knows exactly how much you used. Write scientific names of organisms in full length once and after you abbreviate them. The table designs are inconsistent.
Response 1: All the suggestion in the reviewed manuscript has been changed according to the suggestion (Attached tracked manuscript with changes). Also, language has been edited by professionals.
The weight per litter has been added in the M & M section, lines 114-115.
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Point 2: Regarding the introduction, more relevant references should be provided, especially on the chosen Plants Prosopis juliflora, Ipomoea carnea, and Leucaena leucocephala. Are there preliminary studies on these plants? In addition, the reader does not know why the pathogens Fusarium solani, Alternaria solani, and Colletotrichum circinans were chosen as test pathogens.
Response 2: No preliminary studies have been done.
The reason for using those pathogens is that those pathogens infect a very important economic crop in the country.
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Point 3: The research design is in some parts, especially the ‘Pathogenicity test’, not well and clearly enough described. For instance, where exactly did you collect the fungal strains? You determined the genus by morphological structures, but how did you determine the species?
Response 3: The pathogen test has been deleted as your and other reviewer’s suggestion.
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Point 4: Provide more details on the extraction process. Did you cooked the leaves in the water?
Response 4: The details of extraction have been added in the M & M, lines 114-115. No, it is not cooked, but the leaves are ground in distilled water.
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Point 5: I do not understand the purpose of the ‘Pathogenicity test’ in context with the plant extracts. In addition, you only show pictures but no number of the results.
Response 5: The pathogen test has been deleted as your and other reviewer’s suggestion.
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Point 6: Four parameters were chosen to determine the antifungal activity of the extracts: (1) fungal growth, (2) spore formation, (3) spore germination and (4) total biomass. I think two (fungal growth and germination rate) in vitro test are enough to determine the efficacy of the extracts against the pathogens. It would be more interesting to see the effect in an in vivo system, e.g. leaf discs or whole plants. I am also missing a calculation of the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of the extracts, which is crucial when studying the efficacy of possible pesticides.
Response 6: Yes, you are right. We are willing to continue research in vivo in the future.
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Point 7: How many times did you repeat the experiments? If you did it only once with three replicates, then it is to less.
Response 7: The experiment has been done once. However, the replicate in a mean of 10 Petri dishes reading, not one.
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Point 8: The illustration of some results could be improved. For instance, the results of the growth test would be more clear in a bar diagram. The diameter mean of the negative control should be provided. In addition, how can you receive a higher inhibitory effect [%] with an increasing mean diameter growth? Are the differences in fungal growth statistically significant compared to the negative control?
Response 8: Yes, you are right, The negative control was missing in the last version and has been given. And Yes, the difference is significant compared to the negative control.
There is a negative correlation between growth diameter and inhibitory effect. Higher growth diameter means less inhibitory, and vice versa.
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Point 9: I do not understand the results shown in table 4 or ALG in general. What is it? There is not description in the M&M section.
Response 9: It is the mean daily growth rate of fungal. The title changes to Average daily growth, and it has described in the M & M section, lines 149-152.
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Point 10: The conclusion of the results are also not well described. The first passage is even redundant since it only describes the three fungi used in this study. The last three sentences are about the “results” of the ‘Pathogenicity test’, however, as I mentioned above, there is no connection to the analysed extracts and there are no real results, but only pictures of the infected seeds. Furthermore, the conclusion on the LC-MS results is missing.
Response 10: The pathogen test has been deleted from all sections as per your and other reviewer’s suggestions.
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Point 11: Due to the severity and frequency of the flaws, it is not possible to show or discuss all problems in the manuscript. I highly encourage the authors to rethink their approach when analysing the plant extracts. I also recommend the use of an English language editing service.
Response 11: English has been edited by a professional.
Sincerely,
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript, entitled: The effectiveness of three invasive plant species extracts as low-cost fungicides. It touches on a very wide range of professional topics. Research with plant pathogenic fungi and the plant extracts of natural origin that can be used pathogens has a long history. Attention has also shifted to invasive plant species, as their reservation strategies often show increased resistance to pathogens.
The authors also studied the effects of aqueous extracts of different concentrations prepared from the leaves of 3 such invasive plant species and tried to find an active ingredient of plant origin that could be identified as a fungicide.
This study may also be a good basis for development, but unfortunately the formulation of a true biofungicide based on the present studies is still a long way off.
One of my objections to the professional accuracy of the manuscript is that the designation of pathogen and disease is mixed, although we are well aware that the two are not exactly the same.
The pathogenicity test and its results (2.5.) are not really relevant to the topic of the manuscript. I suggest you leave this out. However, I suggest a more precise description of the origin of the pathogen isolates.
I also recommend expanding the introductory part regarding the appearance and spread of the studied invasive plant species in the Middle East region.
In the plant extraction procedure I think distilled water was used. I would like to clarify this!
It is also necessary to clarify in the methodological description (lines 149 and 161) the amount of spore suspension used (really 100 l ?).
In line 240, the scientific name Leucaena leucocephala must be written in italics.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Point 1: The manuscript, entitled: The effectiveness of three invasive plant species extracts as low-cost fungicides. It touches on a very wide range of professional topics. Research with plant pathogenic fungi and the plant extracts of natural origin that can be used pathogens has a long history. Attention has also shifted to invasive plant species, as their reservation strategies often show increased resistance to pathogens.
The authors also studied the effects of aqueous extracts of different concentrations prepared from the leaves of 3 such invasive plant species and tried to find an active ingredient of plant origin that could be identified as a fungicide.
This study may also be a good basis for development, but unfortunately the formulation of a true biofungicide based on the present studies is still a long way off.
Response 1: Thanks a lot for your positive comments on the manuscript and its importance.
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Point 2: One of my objections to the professional accuracy of the manuscript is that the designation of pathogen and disease is mixed, although we are well aware that the two are not exactly the same.
Response 2: Yes, you may be right. But we wanted to compare several plant extracts on different fungal strains to have a good idea about their effect as antifungals, not only in specific fungi.
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Point 3: The pathogenicity test and its results (2.5.) are not really relevant to the topic of the manuscript. I suggest you leave this out. However, I suggest a more precise description of the origin of the pathogen isolates.
Response 3: The pathogenicity test has been deleted in all parts, as your and other reviewers suggested.
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Point 4: I also recommend expanding the introductory part regarding the appearance and spread of the studied invasive plant species in the Middle East region.
Response 4: Actually we already have another published manuscript about the distribution of the invasive species, specially Prosopis. So, we were focussde mainly here on antifungal activity.
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Point 5: In the plant extraction procedure I think distilled water was used. I would like to clarify this!
Response 5: Yes, you are right and this has been cleared in the M & M section, 114-115.
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Point 6: It is also necessary to clarify in the methodological description (lines 149 and 161) the amount of spore suspension used (really 100 l ?).
Response 6: No, it is miss typing, it is 100µl.
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Point 7: In line 240, the scientific name Leucaena leucocephala must be written in italics
Response 7: It has been corrected to italic
Sincerely,
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Need some minor revision as
- Title editing
- English editing
- More statistical analysis
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 3 Comments
Point 1: Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Need some minor revision as
Title editing
English editing
More statistical analysis
Response 1: All suggestions in the attached revised manuscript have been done according to your suggestion.
Professional has edited English.
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Sincerely,
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 4 Report
The manuscript discusses the antifungal activity of plant extracts at various concentrations and identification of the metabolites. Extensive English editing is required, as are the following comments, which must be explained or revised.
- Title need to be revised.
- Why nutrient agar was used for fungi, when they can grow on PDA?
- Write the full form of SNA first, then abbreviation can be used?
- Table 1 mentions the host plants of fungi used, why one of the seeds were not from the host plant for pathogenicity test and radish seeds were used?
- Sentence from line 110 to 112 is not in scientific language and should be rephrased or removed.
- Why only 3 concentrations were used? Authors didn’t use more than 30 % and less than 10%?
- No mentioning of how plant extracts were prepared?
- Section 2.3 and subsequent sections that deals with antifungal experiments including biomass, spore germination and formation; doesn’t mention what were positive and negative control?
- Section 2.3; 20uL that was added at the centre of the plate, no mentioning how were stock prepared from which 20uL was added?
- The serial number after section 2.4 is not correct, instead of 2.5 its again 2.3; check all over the manuscript.
- Line # 149; A 100 l spore …. what is meant by this
- Line # 185; what does dish seeds mean?
- Section of pathogenicity test doesnot include positive and negative control?
- How the seeds were surface sterilized?
- Result section is not initiated the way the authors did in this manuscript.
- Table 2 legend is vague and from existing legend the reader cant not understand what data is presented in the table. It may be “Radial inhibitory percentage………”
- Table 4; How do authors explain that for Ipomoea carnea extract the Average Line Growth increases with increase in concentration for solani and A.solani
- Update references suggested
- Conclusion not included in the manuscript.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 4 Comments
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Point 1: The manuscript discusses the antifungal activity of plant extracts at various concentrations and identification of the metabolites. Extensive English editing is required, as are the following comments, which must be explained or revised.
Response 1: Professional has edited English.
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Point 2: Title need to be revised.
Response 2: The title has been revised
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Point 3: Why nutrient agar was used for fungi, when they can grow on PDA?
Response 3: Yes, PDA agar has been used which contains some minerals. The word “nutrient agar” has been deleted for no confusion.
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Point 4: Write the full form of SNA first, then abbreviation can be used?
Response 4: The full form has been given, line 100
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Point 5: Table 1 mentions the host plants of fungi used, why one of the seeds were not from the host plant for pathogenicity test and radish seeds were used?
Response 5: This is according to where we can find the fungal strains.
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Point 6: Sentence from line 110 to 112 is not in scientific language and should be rephrased or removed.
Response 6: The sentence has been rephrased.
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Point 7: Why only 3 concentrations were used? Authors didn’t use more than 30 % and less than 10%?
Response 7: This is according to previous experience.
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Point 8: No mentioning of how plant extracts were prepared?
Response 8: Plant extract preparation has been described in lines 114-115.
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Point 9: Section 2.3 and subsequent sections that deals with antifungal experiments including biomass, spore germination and formation; doesn’t mention what were positive and negative control?
Response 9: Negative control has been added
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Point 10: Section 2.3; 20uL that was added at the centre of the plate, no mentioning how were stock prepared from which 20uL was added?
Response 10: Stock preparation has been described in M & M section, lines 114-115.
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Point 11: The serial number after section 2.4 is not correct, instead of 2.5 its again 2.3; check all over the manuscript.
Response 11: The serial number was checked and corrected
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Point 12: Line # 149; A 100 l spore …. what is meant by this
Response 12: This is miss typing, It has been corrected to 100µl.
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Point 13: Line # 185; what does dish seeds mean?
Response 13: Radish seeds, the scientific name has been given.
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Point 14: Section of pathogenicity test doesnot include positive and negative control?
Response 14: The pathogenicity test has been deleted from all parts as recommended by other reviewers.
The negative control has been given to the other variables.
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Point 15: How the seeds were surface sterilized?
Response 15: Which seeds? I can not understand this comment as we used plant extracts on fungi strains.
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Point 16: Result section is not initiated the way the authors did in this manuscript.
Response 16: Results section has been initiated according to the data collected.
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Point 17: Table 2 legend is vague and from existing legend the reader cant not understand what data is presented in the table. It may be “Radial inhibitory percentage………”
Response 17: The table legend has been corrected to “Radial inhibitory …” as you suggested.
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Point 18: Table 4; How do authors explain that for Ipomoea carnea extract the Average Line Growth increases with increase in concentration for solani and A.solani
Response 18: Sorry, this is incorrect while copying and pasting data. The data has been corrected in the revised manuscript version.
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Point 19: Update references suggested
Response 19: Reference has been updated according to changes.
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Point 20: Conclusion not included in the manuscript.
Response20: The conclusion section has been included.
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Sincerely,
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Review:
The revised manuscript provided by the authors includes some improvements and reviewer comments were partly answered. However, spelling and grammar mistakes can still be found in the text, even after the text “has been edited by a professional” (for examples see reviewed version 2). Furthermore, many questions/comments of the reviewer have not been or were not adequately answered:
Point 2: Regarding the introduction, more relevant references should be provided, especially on the chosen Plants Prosopis juliflora, Ipomoea carnea, and Leucaena leucocephala. Are there preliminary studies on these plants? In addition, the reader does not know why the pathogens Fusarium solani, Alternaria solani, and Colletotrichum circinans were chosen as test pathogens.
Response 2: No preliminary studies have been done.
The reason for using those pathogens is that those pathogens infect a very important economic crop in the country.
A: Add the information in the text preferentially with reference. No additional references were added as requested.
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Point 3: The research design is in some parts, especially the ‘Pathogenicity test’, not well and clearly enough described. For instance, where exactly did you collect the fungal strains? You determined the genus by morphological structures, but how did you determine the species?
Response 3: The pathogen test has been deleted as your and other reviewer’s suggestion.
A: It is still unknown how the authors determined the species level. In addition, it is not clear how many times each experiment was conducted and how many replicates were used.
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Point 4: Provide more details on the extraction process. Did you cooked the leaves in the water?
Response 4: The details of extraction have been added in the M & M, lines 114-115. No, it is not cooked, but the leaves are ground in distilled water.
A: How much water did you add? For me, the exact concentration is still not clear. Especially in some experiments (biomass), the reader does not know the final concentration of the extracts used.
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Point 6: Four parameters were chosen to determine the antifungal activity of the extracts: (1) fungal growth, (2) spore formation, (3) spore germination and (4) total biomass. I think two (fungal growth and germination rate) in vitro test are enough to determine the efficacy of the extracts against the pathogens. It would be more interesting to see the effect in an in vivo system, e.g. leaf discs or whole plants. I am also missing a calculation of the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of the extracts, which is crucial when studying the efficacy of possible pesticides.
Response 6: Yes, you are right. We are willing to continue research in vivo in the future.
A: What about the MIC values for each extract and pathogen?
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Point 7: How many times did you repeat the experiments? If you did it only once with three replicates, then it is to less.
Response 7: The experiment has been done once. However, the replicate in a mean of 10 Petri dishes reading, not one.
A: Were all experiments done once with 10 replicates? If so, then the experiment was not conducted properly. Do at least three independent experiments with about 5-10 replicates.
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Point 8: The illustration of some results could be improved. For instance, the results of the growth test would be more clear in a bar diagram. The diameter mean of the negative control should be provided. In addition, how can you receive a higher inhibitory effect [%] with an increasing mean diameter growth? Are the differences in fungal growth statistically significant compared to the negative control?
Response 8: Yes, you are right, The negative control was missing in the last version and has been given. And Yes, the difference is significant compared to the negative control.
There is a negative correlation between growth diameter and inhibitory effect. Higher growth diameter means less inhibitory, and vice versa.
A: There is no indication for significant differences in table 2. Furthermore, in table 2, why you show the results after 5 and 8 days? Only after 5 days would be enough. Also, you did not mentioned in M&M that you also calculated the values after 8 days. In addition, the table design should be adjusted; The third line is only partially bold. I assume that the values ‘Diameter mean’ are relative values, compared to NC. I recommend either remove the diameter values completely, since inhibitory effect in % would be enough, or replace the values by showing the raw mean diameter growth. Anyway, I still encourage you to use a diagram instead of a table for data presentation. It would be clearer for the reader.
In table 3, there is still no description about the meaning of the letters. Obviously, it shows the significant differences, but according to which test and which p value (0.001 or 0.05)?
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Point 9: I do not understand the results shown in table 4 or ALG in general. What is it? There is not description in the M&M section.
Response 9: It is the mean daily growth rate of fungal. The title changes to Average daily growth, and it has described in the M & M section, lines 149-152.
A: The ADG Results in table 4 are mentioned in two sentence in 2.4 without any information about the purpose of this test or how exactly the experiment was done. Is it connected with the results of the experiment described in 2.4? If so, why are the results in table 4 and not included in table 2?
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In conclusion, besides the remaining problems in English language and style, there are still some big flaws in the manuscript regarding missing references, experimental design, illustration of the results and conclusions.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thanks you for these comments and suggestions. We believe we have now corrected almost all of the spelling and grammar mistakes in revising the manuscript.
Point 2: We have revised the Introduction, and tried to include more relevant citations. We also provide descriptions of the three invasive trees in the Discussion of the manuscript. As indicated previously, these pathogens were chosen because thy attack crop plants in Egypt and around the worls.
Point 3: We no longer use the species names for the three pathogens, and we now refer to them at the generic level.
Point 4: W have revised the manuscript to provide more information on the concentration of the plant extracts.
Point 6: We did not calculate the MIC values for each extract and pathogen.
Point 7: We conducted three replicates per treatment. That information is now given in the Materials and Methods section of the manuscript.
Point 8: We have chosen to retain the tables in this manuscript, and do not show these data in figures. Our attempts to place these data in figures resulted in figures that seems cluttered to us. In addition, the trends of fungal inhibition are fairly easy to discern when presented in tables.
We now mention in the M and M section that these experiments were conducted for five and eight days. We believe that conducting these experiments over these two time intervals gives readers a sense of how fungal inhibition changes over time.
The meaning of the letters in Table 3 has now been described in the revised manuscript.
Point 9: The results in Table 4 are related to the results in Table 2, but provide a different picture of fungal performance when exposed to the extracts because the data in Table 4 describe the rate of change in growth, not the final amount of growth.
Reviewer 4 Report
1) The result section does not begin with the sentence "Table (2) revealed......," as this is not a scientific way of writing an international article.
2) It would be a good addition to include figures that support the inhibition percentage of plant extracts against fungal pathogens and also the LC-MS chromatograms.
Author Response
Thank you for these comments. Here are our responses:
Point 1: We fully agree that a sentence should not begin with, "Table 2 revealed..." and this has been corrected in the revised manuscript.
Point 2: We attempted to prepare figures depicted the results summarized in our tables, but we thought that the figures we generated appeared cluttered, and we have chosen to retain these table. In addition, we believe that the trends of fungal inhibition by these plant extracts is easy to see by a quick scan of the number in these tables.
We decided to not include LC-MS chromatograms in this manuscript because of the descriptive and preliminary nature of these data at this point in this research. We are planning a more detailed analysis of the compounds of the three plant extracts used in this study, and we will include those data and chromatograms in that future manuscript.
