Characteristics and Potential Use of Fruits from Different Varietal Groups of Sechium edule (Jacq.) Sw

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Postharvest Characteristics and Potential use of fruits from different varietal groups of Sechium edule (Jacq) SW.

The morphological and biochemical characteristics of 10 varieties of chayote are presented in this paper. The storage ability of the tested varieties was determined. In addition, the effect of 1-MCP treatment on storage of 6 selected varieties was studied. The research presented in this paper is an extension of earlier studies addressing similar issues, but based on three varieties of chayote (Ramirez-Rodas et al. 2021. Scientia Agropecuaria 12.2).

Below I listed some questions, comments and suggestions

Line 18. Does the paper concern 10 groups of varieties, or 10 specific varieties of chayote?

Line 36,79. What it is horticultural maturity?

Line 45- 50.  Enter the full names for the abbreviations:  Cu D, Cu I, Cu B and Cu E?

Line100, 112. Sounds odd: according to [20] or proposed by [22]. I suggest proposed by Lichtenthale [22] etc.

Line 102-103. In the description to the formula give the full names of all abbreviations. The same applies to the other formulas.

Line 133-136. The information was given in a very convoluted way. The following questions arise: Was the fruit not treated with 1-MCP (as a control) also stored under the same conditions as the treated fruit? How long were the fruits stored at 24°C? In how many replicates was the storage experiment conducted?  How many fruits or kg of fruit were in one repetition?

Line 138-139. Which tomatoes were weighed in one place and which in another place?

Line 146. What is the point of this sentence?

Line 212 – 215. What color parameter is described?

Table 1. Title. Change the information in parentheses regarding the length of the fruit (lower and upper limits) to range.  Is the correct abbreviation for: stomata frequency  (FE) - in line 93 is SF, stomatal index (SE) or SI,  color index - (line 105 – 107) is  CO* but in line 17 is CI.

Line 241, 242, 269, 274. SST or TSS?

Line 272. What's with the “SI” at the end of the sentence?

Line 278-283. Controversial is paragraph 278 - 283.  What are the CPs CVP1 CP2 and CP3? The abbreviation for Principal Components is PC and the first time you write it down, you need to enter the full name. Where are the results for this description? I suggest you either present a biplot for the results or remove this paragraph, because it's not clear what this is about.

Line 288-289. In Figure 3a, fungal diseases for the 4 varieties listed are shown in green, only oxidation in red. So what about this high disease incidence?

 Line 329.  Remove one during

Figure 4. Label each figure with A and B and state this in the description. Additionally  provide information what statistical test was used to calculate the results.  Also state whether the means were compared separately for each observation term or across the block. It would be good to mark the significance with letters on the figures.

Table 3. It seems to me that the means of 1-MCP-treated and untreated fruits were compared within the same cultivar, so it should be noted under the table that "means ± SE with different lowercase letters in the same column are significantly different according to the test .................  test (P = 0.05)."

Is it really Kruskalla-Wallkis test?

I could not find a citation in the text for item 58 of References

Author Response

Pleas see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript is, in general, well-written and organized. Major concerns are lack of information regarding material and method and discussion around your results. Please see additional comments and suggestions in the attached file.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

English is good, with some minor edits. Please see the attached file.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript by Rivera-Ponce et al. explored the postharvest change of 10 chayote varieties, several variables and 1-MCP treatment were studied to provide the guidance for chayote production. In my opinion, the manuscript can be accepted after minor revisions. Please see my comments to improve the manuscript.

-Please provide the pulp information, such as firmness and/or pulp color. Otherwise add more introduction/discussion about this.

Line 83, how many fruit were used in this study?

Figure 1, please provide the scale of the figure, which can exhibit the real size of different fruit. If possible, it's better if there's cross section pictures of the fruit.

Line 131-132, what was the final concentration of 1-MCP? What was the RH of the 1-MCP fumigation?

Line 147-149, I recommend the authors use more specific scales to evaluate these parameters, such as the dehydration level, how severe is high or moderate, chilling injury was depend on what symptoms?

Line 158, please provide the replication information.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

After the authors' correction, the MS has become a bit clearer, but there are still many comments that I have highlighted in the text.  

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Editor: Thank you for the comments.  Every point suggested by the reviewer was checked and corrected.

Also when a change in the  paragraph was suggested, it was corrected for example:

1) Line 221-223 said: "The presence of chlorophylls and stomata in chayote suggests that they,
like cucumber fruits, have the ability to photosynthesize, although there are no studies of 
the characteristics and their contribution to growth through carbon assimilation, this 
should be considered for future research."

It was modified to: "The presence of chlorophylls and stomata in chayote suggests that, like other fruits, there is a photosynthetic activity, which may be differential depending of the stage of development"

2) Line 244-245: "In chayote, the average acidity is 0.13 %, similar in all the evaluated varieties, a. dulcis had the highest acidity with 0.18 % and n. maxima the lowest with 0.10 %."

It was modified to: "In all the chayote varieties, the acidity was around 0.13 %. The variety  a. dulcis had the highest acidity with 0.18 % and n. maxima the lowest with 0.10 %.

3) Line 262-265: "Fructose and glucose are the major components of total sugar in chayote [13]. Verma et al., [48] characterized 74 chayote accessions, which contained from 1.09 to 2.94 % of total 
sugars, these values are similar to those obtained in this study which varied between 1.51 
and 2.55 %, very low if compared to other cucurbits such as melon which contains between 3.85 and 8.5 % [49], pumpkin between 9.39 and 10.49 % [50], watermelon between 7.27 to 11.38 % [51] and similar to cucumber which contains between 2.87 to 4.72 % [52].

It was modified to: "Fructose and glucose are the major components of total sugar in chayote [13]. Verma et al., [48] characterized 74 chayote accessions, which contained from 1.09 to 2.94 % of total sugars, these values are similar to those obtained in this study which varied between 1.51 and 2.55 %. Other cucurbits are reported to have higher sugar content, such as melon with 3.85- 8.5 % [49], pumpkin 9.39-10.49 % [50], watermelon 7.27 -11.38 % [51] , been  the cucumbers similar to chayote with 2.87- 4.72 % [52].

4) Line 321-323: "Weight loss is caused by metabolic processes such as respiration and by transpiration caused by the water vapour pressure deficit, it is known that larger fruits lose less weight 
than smaller ones [61], in this case fruits of n. maxima and a. levis gigante and v. levis lost 
significantly (p = < 0.001) less weight than very small fruits such as n. minor and a. minor."

It was modified to: "Weight loss is caused by metabolic processes such as respiration and by transpiration caused by the water vapour pressure deficit. Larger fruits lose less weight than smaller ones [60], in this case fruits of n. maxima and a. levis gigante and v. levis lost significantly (p = < 0.001) less weight than very small fruits such as n. minor and a. minor.

Line 331-333: "When harvest takes place in months with high temperature and rainfall, it favours 
fungal attack and the presence of blisters, which contribute to the detriment of the fruit. 
The infection can occur in the field or in the packinghouse, the main causal fungi are Colletotrichum, Fusarium, Geotrichum, Phytophthora, Didymella and Chaetomium, in this study 
Phoma and Alternaria were also identified in most of the infected fruits"

It was modified to: "High temperature and rainfall during chayote harvest season favors fungal attack and the presence of blisters, which affect the quality of the fruit. The infection can occur in the field or in the packinghouse, fungi such as Colletotrichum, Fusarium, Geotrichum, Phytophthora, Didymella and Chaetomium, have been reported  [62]. In this study Phoma and Alternaria were also identified in most of the infected fruits (Table 2). In chayote fruits has been reported that the brown rot is caused by Fusarium citri [63]. 

5) Figure 4 was divided, one figure per graph

6) Line 378 : 2.3.2 Effect of 1-MCP  on Refrigerated Storage

Modified: 2.3.2 Effect of 1-MCP on chayote fruit

7) Line 392-395: "Recent research reports that 1-MCP, not only inhibit ethylene action, block-
ing the ethylene receptors, inhibiting its hormonal action, but its action on the biosynthesis
because it has more affinity to the active site of ACC oxidase, and similar to its substrate 
1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid, resulting in inhibition of ethylene biosynthesis.

Modified to: 

"Recent research reports that the effectiveness of  1-MCP is based not only on the fact that it blocks the ethylene receptors, but also affects its  biosynthesis due to its affinity to the active site of ACC oxidase [74]."

I hope these changes can be accepted  and continued with the Editorial procedure

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I've highlighted a few places in the text for correction

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

Thank you for the corrections to the manuscript. Changes in the comments in yellow were made, adding, correcting or deleting words or sentences. All changes are marked in green. Also you will find some minor changes such as:

• The same latin name of chayote was added to figures, tables and text just as it appears in the title
• The word Kruskall Wallis was corrected because sometimes was written in a wrong way (Kruskal) (Table 1 and Figure 5) and corrected alfa=0.05
• Letters in figure 5 were added as well as modified the description adding: Different letters in the same day indicate significant differences between means according Kruskall-Wallis (α= 0.05). (n=6 ± SE).
• In page 10, the text was improved, when water vapour pressure deficit was discussed. The text changed to: Weight loss is caused by metabolic processes such as respiration and transpiration. Larger fruits lose less weight than smaller ones [60], in this case fruits of maxima and a. levis gigante and v. levis lost significantly (p = < 0.001) less weight than very small fruits such as n. minor and a. minor. The storage at 21 °C and 70 % RH investigated in this study corresponds to the conditions under which the chayote fruits are marketed by local producers; changes in relative humidity can affect the quality of the fruits, due the water vapour pressure deficit.
• In References, reference 3, the title of the journal was simplified

 

Also because I have problems with the last file, I have to move the manuscript to a new Horticulture template.  Thanks to your advice the manuscript improved significally.