A Study on the Fruiting and Correlation between the Chemical Indicators and Antimicrobial Properties of Hippophae rhamnoides L.
, Elisaveta Sandulachi 1, Artur Macari 1, Sergiu Popa 2,*, Ion Ribintev 2, Iuliana Sandu 1, Olga Boestean 1 and Irina Dianu 1
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsPlease, refer to PDF file
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the responses below and the corresponding revisions/corrections.
Best regards,
Assoc. prof. Netreba Natalia, Ph.D
Faculty of Food Technology
Technical University of Moldova
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsComments to the manuscript horticulturae-2801005 “A study on fruiting and correlation between chemical indicators and antimicrobial properties of Hippophae rhamnoides L.”.
Authors propose the report of an experiment of comparison of four cultivars of sea buckthorn for plant growth, fruit yield, fruit chemical composition, and antimicrobial properties of fruit pulp. The research objective is of potential scientific interest and the experiment was correctly designed and carried out. However, the manuscript showed a lack of linearity among the Material and Methods and the Results sections and may be accepted after moderate revision. The Materials and Methods section presents the following sub-sections: Plant material, Reagents used, Content of Biologically Active Substances, Physicochemical Analysis, and Antimicrobial Activity. The Results section do not present a sub-section division and the results are presented not exactly in the same order as in Materials and Methods.
In my opinion, the Materials and Methods should be presented in the following new order: Plant material and field test (not described), Reagents used, Physicochemical Analysis, Content of Biologically Active Substances, and Antimicrobial Activity. The Results should follow the same order and be organized in corresponding sub-sections. The Discussion may be divided in more synthetic sections as made by Authors.
1) Page 1, line 18 and all over the text: Authors indifferently use the terms “cultivar”, “variety”, and “species”. In this manuscript, when referred to the four cultivars (Clara, Dora, Cora, Mara), the correct term to use is always cultivar. Please carefully change in the text.
2) Page 1, lines 20-22: The abstract will be more informative if the cited data on fruit composition is accompanied by the clear reference to the analysed sample (Whole fruit or pulp? Fresh or dry weight? Acidity of pulp or of juice?). Please change in the abstract and in the text if it is necessary.
3) Pages 3-4, lines 83-160: Please provide more details on the sample submitted to every analysis. How frozen fruit was treated before extraction processes? The fruit and puree used in the agar diffusion plates was weighted to made comparable the data of every plate?
4) Pages 4-5, lines 168-188: The results of the field test presented in the Table 1 were not presented in the Materials and Methods section. Please provide an adequate description of the experimental design: location (geographic coordinates), climate summary, soil type, planting distance and plot design, number of plants per replication, plant age, rootstock or other propagation system used, cultural management (irrigation, fertilization, treatments), plant shape.
6) Tables 1, 2, 3, and 4; Figures 3-4: Please provide the results of a mean separation test to be included in the Tables and Figures.
7) Table 5: This table should be removed to the Discussion section.
8) Page 9, line 260: please change “… tatraic …” with “… tartaric …”.
9) Page 10, line 319: the citation number [63] is probably the number [62].
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageMinor editing of English language required.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer, Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the responses below and the corresponding revisions/corrections.
Best regards,
Assoc. prof. Netreba Natalia, Ph.D
Faculty of Food Technology
Technical University of Moldova
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsArticle
A Study on Fruiting and Correlation Between Chemical Indicators and Antimicrobial Properties of Hippophae rhamnoides L.
A brief summary
All in All, the topic taken up by the authors is an interesting - the results of the research may allow the development of an interesting and innovative method of utilising the extremely valuable sea buckthorn fruit. The research is generally properly designed, the results interesting. Unfortunately, the paper contains a number of inaccuracies, mistakes, inconsistencies and typos. The work needs to be completely reworked, but I believe that if done properly the result could be worth the work and would be suitable for publication in a scientific journal.
Broad comments
1. When comparing the four varieties, analysis of variance alone is not sufficient. Post-hoc tests must be carried out to be able to indicate which varieties differ from others. The results of these tests are missing from the tables in the figures.
2. If the authors are looking to show the lowest and highest values then they should use box charts, which are perfect for this. I do not understand at all how to interpret standard deviations for minimum and maximum values.
3. Abbreviations and units should be standardised. For example, there is 'TDNC' in the text and 'TDM' in Table 3. The term 'content of drying substances' in line 228 is probably not appropriate. Either the notation 'kg plant-1' and 't ha-1' or 'kg/cm2' should be used (table1).
4. The order of the methods presented in the 'Materials and Methods' chapter should be the same as in the 'Results' chapter and in the tables. Now ascorbic acid content, organic acids and carotenoids content are discussed and presented in a completely different order. Exactly: can the terms 'carotenoids', 'carotenoid content' and 'carotenoid concentration' be used interchangeably?
5. The description of the determination of ascorbic acid is disproportionately extensive compared to the description of the other determinations. As described in line 118, were only two replicates performed? Does this apply to one physical sample?
6. The 'Conclusions' chapter is too poor. It should include the practical results of the work carried out and the possibilities for their application.
7. The 'Literature' chapter needs to be revised and adapted to citation standards, e.g. long or short journal names or years of publication.
Specific comments
Table 1. In addition to the previous comments, replace commas with full stops and add standard deviations. And move the horizontal line higher, under the heading.
Table 2. There should be as many significant digits as the method of determination and there should be the same number in the mean and standard deviation. This also applies to organic acids. The number of samples should be included in the header, since it was always the same (n=48).
Table 3. Why was this one table rearranged and varieties placed in rows?
Table 4. Please explain what is meant by '* recalculated'.
Table 5. In research papers (rather than review papers) such a table is unlikely to be appropriate. Nor should it be in the 'Results' section. It is appropriate to describe the data in the discussion text and relate it to the data obtained.
Figures 2-3. The caption should state 'Variety' rather than 'Samples'.
Lines189-192. This is unnecessary repetition.
Lines 249-250. What are the 'AGG' and 'six' varieties?
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the responses below and the corresponding revisions/corrections.
Best regards,
Assoc. prof. Netreba Natalia, Ph.D
Faculty of Food Technology
Technical University of Moldova
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsPlease, refer to PDF file.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
The authors would like to thank the reviewer for his/her comments and suggestions, which have been taken into consideration.
Best regards,
Assoc. prof. Netreba Natalia, Ph.D
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsComments to the manuscript horticulturae-2801005 “A study on fruiting and correlation between chemical indicators and antimicrobial properties of Hippophae rhamnoides L.”.
Authors have partially modified the manuscript according to the reviewer’s suggestions. In my opinion, the manuscript needs some further minor changes.
1)Page 1, lines 13 and 35: in these cases the term species is the most appropriate.
2)Page 1, line 19 and all over the text: the terms variety or varieties are more appropriate to define natural botanic varieties. In this case, referring to the four selections studied, the term cultivar is the most appropriate. Please change all over the text.
3) Page1, line 21: please check “… of of sea …”.
4) In the Materials and Methods section the sub-section “2.4. Physicochemical Analysis” should be inserted before the sub-section “2.3. Content of Biologically Active Substances”. In the Results the same change should be don between the sub-sections 3.2 and 3.3.
5) Tables 1, 2, 3, and 4; Figures 3-4: Please provide in every table or figure the results of a mean separation test (Tukey, LSD or Duncan’s) to be included in the Tables and Figures accompanied by the significance level. The report of the means ± SD is not always sufficient to discriminate the statistically significant differences. Please include the lsd values or letters to label the mean values.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageMinor editing of English language required.
Author Response
The authors would like to thank the reviewer for his/her comments and suggestions, which have been taken into consideration.
Best regards,
Assoc. prof. Netreba Natalia, Ph.D
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsMost of the comments have been taken into account, significantly improving the readability of the text. Unfortunately, the question of statistics and presentation of results remained.
1. It seems that, comparing the parameters of several studied objects by simple statistical tests and demonstrating the absence of differences between them or finding the presence and INDICATING these differences is an essential element of any scientific paper, regardless of the authors' overarching goals. I therefore maintain that the data presented in the tables and figures should be supplemented by the results of the statistical analysis.
2. The presentation of the lowest and highest values of the parameters tested in the table is, of course, acceptable. However, how do you explain that, for example, the lowest AAC value (Table 2) in fruit of the Clara variety is 99.08, the highest is 193.85 and the standard deviation (line 251) is 0.88? This note applies to all data presented.
3. I still do not understand how to interpret the standard deviations for the 'low' and 'max' values in Figures 2 and 3.
4. The comment regarding the same number of significant digits for means and standard deviations has not been taken into account.
Author Response
The authors would like to thank the reviewer for his/her comments and suggestions, which have been taken into consideration.
Best regards,
Assoc. prof. Netreba Natalia, Ph.D
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
