Evaluation of the Storage Characteristics in Maintaining the Overall Quality of Whole and Fresh-Cut Romaine Lettuce during MA Storage

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript provides useful information about the postharvest properties of Romaine lettuce (RL) and the influence of MA on those properties. The data presented in the paper can support storage of RLs under CA or MAP and hopefully its shortcomings can be addressed.

The abstract is too long. It should be below 350 words. Abstract should be more informative and discuss more deeply the interest and perspectives of this study

In the INTRODUCTION section, authors should mention relevant information concerning the importance of MA or CA in extending postharvest life of leafy crops. The introduction did not present enough antecedents for the effects of MA or CA in other species of leafy crops, and also it does not cite any of the several existing works on the effects of MA or CA in RL. References used in the manuscript should be updated.

Line 81-22: The effect of GA3-preharvest treatments on RL is irrelevant to this study. It should be eliminated.

The description of the respiration and C2H4 production rates analysis is extremely succinct. A detailed description must be incorporated of the method used, the detailed info the instruments that were used, and the way in which the value of each is expressed. The description of all analysis should also be complemented accordingly.

Some experimental data are missing. How many replicates were used?

It is strongly advised to improve the RESULTS and DISCUSSION section with the suggested recommendations for the previous sections regarding the assessed traits and according to recent and previous published work on leafy crop studies. In addition, authors can see similar studies recently published in Horticulturae to ameliorate the presentation of Results and Discussion of the present work. For instance, several comments can be merged when statistical differences are considered. It is not necessary to repeat for each trait that it was significantly affected by treatments.

It is recommended the incorporation of a separate Discussion section of the Results that incorporates at least the elements mentioned.

All figures should be significantly improved. The graphs should show the result of the comparative statistical analysis at each evaluation point between each treatment. It becomes very difficult to analyze the work without this information. Finally, regarding graphs style, it is recommended to try to be a little more friendly with your readers avoiding the "by default" format. Some ideas would be to homogenize the formats and appearances of all the graphics, use grayscale without texture in bar charts, and in line charts use white bullets for control and black for MA treatments, or vice versa.

There is a certain disconnection between the different experiments and results obtained in this work. There is a lack arguments for the justification of the experiments according to the biological question. How does the analysis of this data contribute to the determination of ethylene? Regarding the results, it was necessary to propose some integrating mechanism that incorporates the contribution of the different sources of evidence generated. The principal components analysis tries to make an integrating overview, but nothing is discussed regard the associativity of the evaluated variables.

The conclusions should be rewritten according to the contributions that the discussion will provide. It is expected that they will include conclusions regarding the different treatments of MA evaluated. What could be the new hypotheses that this work would leave as a contribution to the advancement of this research? To name just a few of the issues that remain unaddressed.

Finally, a specialized English translation service is recommended to review a new revision before sending it again.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper is interesting and valuable, very few research about the MA preservation of Romaine Lettuce, because leafy vegetable are difficult to store. There are some detail that need improve, as shown below:

1. Abstract seems too long, please be more simple and summary.
2. Introduction should be more focused on the factors that we study, for instance the effect of volume of package, the transmission of O2 or CO2 on the conservative effect of MA.
3. Detail about treatment should be more specific, like the weight of material in per package
4. usually we do not use CC as the volume unit, mL or cm3 are prefered. CC usually used in medicine research.
5. Table 1, the data seems incomplete, different point and temperature need to analysed.
6. The change of air component in package is very important for MA research, but this paper do not have this kind of data.
7. data in table 2-3, do not have standard deviation.
8. The english language need to be improved.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

This manuscript focus on the storage characteristics of the whole and fresh-cut Romaine Lettuce during MA storage. The Romaine Lettuce is a very important kind of vegetable. But in this study, the research design is a little unreasonable. The results is simple and can not provide some important information. There are some questions below:

1) The language in this manuscript is bad and is not refined enough. Especial the abstract is too long and should be rewritten.

2) The ethylene was written is "ethylene" is better than "C2H4".

3) In the "Materials and Methods" section, the information is not adequate.  i.e. the sampling time point is not clear. 

4) In the Table 1, the time is not clear.

5) The figures in this manuscript is low quality and should be improved.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper has been revised properly and it can be accepted in the present form.

Author Response

Thank you so much for your advice and comments despite your busy schedule.
I am glad that a better paper will be completed with your interest.
Thanks again.

Reviewer 3 Report

I think the abstract should be refined language. It was too long, not like an 'abstract'.

Author Response

The abstract was 449 words, but it was reduced to 391 words.
It seems difficult to reduce it any longer, sorry.
And a few additional words were corrected.
Thank you for your advice despite your busy schedule.