Comparative Evaluation of Yield and Fruit Physico-Chemical Characteristics of Five Commercial Cultivars of Pomegranate Grown in Southeastern Italy in Two Consecutive Years
, Laura Frabboni 1, Andrea Mazzeo 2, Giuseppe Ferrara 2 and Grazia Disciglio 1
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
In line 166 and 167, “In both years, the average number of fruits per tree showed non- significant differences among cultivars, due to the high variability of data”. Do you think this is good explanation for such finding. If yes , please provide reference to support this result.
Author Response
The authors sincerely thank you and the reviewer for the effort and constructive remarks.
The reviewer wrote: In line 166 and 167, “In both years, the average number of fruits per tree showed non- significant differences among cultivars, due to the high variability of data”. Do you think this is good explanation for such finding. If yes, please provide reference to support this result.
Our reply: The authors apologize to the reviewer.
We have deleted the sentence “due to the high variability of data”
Sincerely yours
Dr. Annalisa Tarantino
Email:[email protected]
Reviewer 2 Report
Line 31, please re-write the sentence.
Lines 34-40; extremely long sentence, please divide it
Line 45; please verify that the origin of 'Jolly red' is from Israel
Lines 46-47; this sentence is obvious, if you have so distinct characteristics, for sure they will be controlled by multiple gene, please re-write it or omit it
Line 71, please provide information on the total amount of irrigation water that was applied please provide information on the type and amount of fertilizers that were applied
Line 77, please provide the annual rainfall in the years of the study, please also provide information on ETp
Line 83. The maturity level of the fruit have high impact on the results, please add details how you have done it (in addition to the reference )
Please provide information on the experimental setup, how many trees, what were the replicates?
Please provide information if you thin the trees along with the development of the fruit.
Figure 1; the number of fruits per tree and the total yield is very low, you got here less than 10 kg per tree while in Lazare et al (Lazare, S., Lyu, Y., Yermiyahu, U., Heler, Y., Ben-Gal, A., Holland, D., & Dag, A. (2020). Optimizing nitrogen application for growth and productivity of pomegranates. Agronomy, 10(3), 366.) we got 40-90 kg, its huge difference with the high importance when you select cultivars with good productivity, please refer to this low yield in the discussion
Table 4 " Colo juice b* " should be "Color juice b*"
Figure 2A, please add to the Y-axis ' as gallic acid equivalents'
There is relevant information on fruit and juice characteristics in "Wonderful" in the paper: Lyu, Y., Porat, R., Yermiyahu, U., Heler, Y., Holland, D., & Dag, A. (2020). Effects of nitrogen fertilization on pomegranate fruit, aril and juice quality. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, 100(4), 1678-1686.' Please refer to them in the discussion of the ms.
Author Response
Reviewer 2
The authors sincerely thank you and the reviewer for the effort and constructive remarks.
The reviewer wrote:
1.Line 31, please re-write the sentence ‘The pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) is precocious for its posture compared to others fruit tree crops, in fact it has a juvenile phase of only 1-2 years’. Our reply: We have deleted the above sentence with the following:The pomegranate (Punica granatum L.), unlike many other fruit trees, has a rapid fruiting and can bear the first fruits in the second year after planting. 2. The reviewer wrote Lines 34-40; extremely long sentence, please divide it Our reply: We have divided in two parts the sentence as following:In recent years, in Italy, as well as in many mild-temperate areas of European countries, an impressive production and consumption of this fruit has been observed. This is due to valid reasons such as interest in farmers to diversify their agricultural production, the recognition of the functional properties of the fruit, the presence of more attractive and productive cultivars, the spread of shelling systems of the aril that facilitate the consumption and development of numerous processed products. 3.The reviewer wrote Line 45; please verify that the origin of 'Jolly red' is from Israel. Our reply: We corrected: 'Jolly red' is native to Sicily, Italy. 4. .The reviewer wrote Lines 46-47; this sentence is obvious, if you have so distinct characteristics, for sure they will be controlled by multiple gene, please re-write it or omit it Our reply: We have deleted the sentence: ‘controlled by multiple gene and all of these characters’ 5. The reviewer wrote Line 71, please provide information on the total amount of irrigation water that was applied, please provide information on the type and amount of fertilizers that were applied.Our reply: The seasonal irrigation volumes were 140 mm, with 12 watering events in 2018; and 395 mm, with 14 watering events in 2019. As for the fertilization, the doses per year applied in the experimental field were 115, 90 and 120 kg ha−1, respectively, for N, P2O 5 and K2 O. The dose of Nitrogen was divided into 3 times from April to August. Phosphorus and Potassium were administered annually in winter.
- 6. The reviewer wrote Line 77, please provide the annual rainfall in the years of the study, please also provide information on ETp
Our reply: The annual rainfall was 525.8 mm in 2018 and 452,5 mm in 2019, while the annual ETo (a representative climate evaporative parameter) were 1273.1 and 1352.7 mm in 2018, and 2019, respectively.
- 7. The reviewer wrote Line 83. The maturity level of the fruit have high impact on the results, please add details how you have done it (in addition to the reference).
Our reply: Fruit maturity was based on the total soluble solids content using a digital refractometer . The fruits were hand-picked when values ​​of 14-15 °Brix were recorded on a sample of fruits of each variety.
- 8. The reviewer wrote: Please provide information on the experimental setup, how many trees, what were the replications ?
Our reply: The experimental design was a randomized complete block design with three replicates per cultivar. Each plot had three rows with 8 trees in each. The central tree in the middle row in each plot was used for data collection..
9 The reviewer wrote: Please provide information if you thin the trees along with the development of the fruit.Our reply Among the operations that are carried out there is certainly that of thinning of small fruits during their development.
10 The reviewer wrote:. Figure 1; the number of fruits per tree and the total yield is very low, you got here less than 10 kg per tree while in Lazare et al (Lazare, S., Lyu, Y., Yermiyahu, U., Heler, Y., Ben-Gal, A., Holland, D., & Dag, A. (2020). Optimizing nitrogen application for growth and productivity of pomegranates. Agronomy, 10(3), 366.) we got 40-90 kg, its huge difference with the high importance when you select cultivars with good productivity, please refer to this low yield in the discussion
Our reply: We have inserted the following sentence and reference: “The pomegranate plants were transplanted in the field in February 2017, therefore the plants were very young in the experimentation years 2018 and 2019. For this low yield per plant, even compared to that obtained in another research carried out in pots [Lazare et al.], in our pedoclimatic conditions were obtained”
Lazare, S., Lyu, Y., Yermiyahu, U., Heler, Y., Ben-Gal, A., Holland, D., & Dag, A. (2020). Optimizing nitrogen application for growth and productivity of pomegranates. Agronomy, 10(3), 366. Agronomy 2020, 10(3), 366; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy10030366
- The reviewer wrote: Table 4 " Colo juice b* " should be "Color juice b*"
. Our reply: The correction has been made.
12 The reviewer wrote:.Figure 2A, please add to the Y-axis ' as gallic acid equivalents' .
Our reply: The correction has been made adding “GAE”
The reviewer wrote: There is relevant information on fruit and juice characteristics in "Wonderful" in the paper: Lyu, Y., Porat, R., Yermiyahu, U., Heler, Y., Holland, D., & Dag, A. (2020). Effects of nitrogen fertilization on pomegranate fruit, aril and juice quality. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, 100(4), 1678-1686.' Please refer to them in the discussion of the ms.
Our reply: We reported the above reference in the manuscript.
Sincerely yours
Dr. Annalisa Tarantino
Email:[email protected]
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments for the manuscript entitled " Comparative evaluation of yield and fruit physico-chemical characteristics of five commercial cultivars of pomegranate grown in southeastern Italy in two consecutive years" submitted to Horticulturae, MS No horticulturae-1723485. The manuscript deals with to understand the yield and fruit physico-chemical properties of five commercial cultivars (‘Mollar’, ’Dente di cavallo’, ’Acco’, ’Jolly 13 red’ and ’Wonderful’) grown in southeastern Italy. The authors have beautifully filled a knowledge gap in this area.
After careful reading of the manuscript, I have found that this is very interesting work. The hypothesis and aim are clear with an appropriate experimental design. The experiments are well-conducted to draw clear-cut conclusions, and the purpose of this study seems to be clear. This manuscript can fit into the scope of the journal well and is a good interest to international readers.
However, I have some small comments on the manuscript, which the authors must address before the paper could be accepted for publication:
Specific Comments:
1. The abstract should be with numerical values and statistical significance
- The results and discussion sections should be improved, particularly the results should be explained with the statistical points of significance.
- The reference of Figure 3 is missing in the text.
Author Response
Reviewer 3
The authors sincerely thank you and the reviewer for the effort and constructive remarks.
- 1. The reviewer wrote: The abstract should be with numerical values and statistical significance
Our reply: We changed the abstract as follow:
Abstract : This study, carried out in two consecutive seasons (2018–2019), evaluated yield and fruit physico-chemical traits of five commercial cultivars (‘Mollar’, ’Dente di cavallo’, ’Acco’, ’Jolly red’ and ’Wonderful’) grown in the orchard at Foggia (Puglia region, southeastern Italy). Results showed significant variations among the investigated cultivars for many measured parameters; seasons also significantly affected some data. As average of the years, both ‘Dente di cavallo’ and ’Wonderful’ showed the significantly highests number (16.8 and 15.2, respectively) and weight (9.3 Kg, respectively) of fruit per tree. ‘Jolly red’ had the highest percentage of edible portion (58,5 %) , the most intense red color in juice (a* value, 11.7), a light red skin color (despite its name) (a*value, 31.1) and the smallest fruits ( 26.7% of diameter ≤ 80 mm). Total soluble solids of all cultivars were considerable above the minimum value (12 °Brix) required for commercial use. ‘Wonderful’ presented the significantly highest value of juice acidity (2.5 g citric acid 100 mL-1 ) and the lowest MI value, and therefore it was classified as sour. Both ‘Dente di cavallo’ and ‘Wonderful’ had significantly higher phenolic content (591.0 and 519.1 mg 100 mL-1, respectively) than the other cultivars, while ‘Dente di cavallo’ showed the highest significantly antioxidant activity value (6.4 mmol TE 100 L-1), The Stepwise Discriminant Analysis procedure allowed a significant differentiation among the cultivars. Correlation analysis showed considerable relation among the different fruit traits. The present data will be helpful in selection of elite desirable pomegranate cultivars to be used for commercial production
- The reviewer wrote: The results and discussion sections should be improved, particularly the results should be explained with the statistical points of significance.
Our reply The results have been improved, and in particular the paragraph of the correlations has been significantly improved from a statistical point of view as reported here.
The correlation matrix relating the different physical and chemical characteristics of pomegranate fruit is presented in Table 7 . The results show that the fruit weight is strongly positive correlated with the fruit diameter (r2 =0.66), and moderately with fruit length (r2 =0.44) and TSS (r2 =0.37), as well as the fruit diameter is positively correlated with the fruit length (r2 =0.55) and aril length (r2 =0.51). Furthermore, fruit length is positively correlated with aril length (r2 =0.57) and aril diameter (r2 =0.45). The data regarding the arils prove an existence of very strong positive correlation between aril length and aril diameter (r2 =0.78) and a positive correlation between aril portion and small fruit (diameter ≤80 mm) (r2 =0.56). Therefore, an increase in fruit size and equatorial diameter does not appear to be a consequence of improving the fruit edible portion. In this regard, Opara et al.[32] find in pomegranate a highly correlation between fruit with and the pericarp and membrane weight. The fresh weight of 100 arils is negatively correlated with juice yield (r2 = -0.44) but it is positively correlated with pH (r2 =0.44) and TSS/TA (r2 = 0.44). Aril dry weight is negatively correlated with both small fruit (diameter ≤80 mm) (r2=-0.58) and TSS/TA (r2 = -0.67), but it is positively correlated with TSS (r2 = 0.59). The small fruit (diameter ≤80 mm) is negatively correlated with TSS (r2 = - 0.58) and TPC (r2 = -0.39), but it is highly positive correlated with the TSS/TA (r2 = 0.66). TSS is negatively correlated with TSS/TA (r2 = -0.70) but positively with TPC (r2 = 0.50). pH shows a weak negative relationship (r2=-0.37) with TA and a positive
ones with TSS/TA (r2= 0.36). Moreover, TSS/TA is negatively correlated with TPC (r2= -0.52). Finally, as expected, a positive correlation was found between TPC and AA. (r2= 0.67).
- 3. The reviewer wrote: The reference of Figure 3 is missing in the text.
Our reply: Change of Fig. 2 in Fig. 3 has been corrected in line 363.
Sincerely yours
Dr. Annalisa Tarantino
Email:[email protected]
Reviewer 4 Report
Dear authors,
the paper presents data dealing with the comparison of yield and fruit physical and chemical traits of five commercial pomegranate cultivars grown in a semiarid and windy environment of Puglia region (southeastern Italy).
The paper has valuable results which can be helpful to assist pomegranate growers in choosing the most suitable cultivars adaptable to the specific climatic conditions.
Some corrections and suggestions are given below:
Page 4, Lines 152-154: please correct the size of the letters in the first sentence.
Page 4, Line 157: replace the value 366.7 mm with one presented in Table 1 (366.4 mm).
Page 4, Line 169: please correct the size of the letters in the part "cultivars (ranging from 12.0 to 14.7).
Pages 5, 6, 7 and 8; Tables 2, 3, 4 and 5 should be placed in landscape format. Under all the tables, the following sentence should be corrected: Average values followed by different letters between the years and cultivars were not statistically different according to the Tukey's test. Please delete "not statistically different" because different letters denote significant differences between the years and cultivars.
Page 8, Line 277: replace the value 72.5 cm3 100-1 g with 74.5 cm3 100-1 g, which is the lowest value presented for juice yield in 2018.
Page 14, Line 396: correct the name of the cultivar Acco.
Author Response
Reviewer 4
The authors sincerely thank you and the reviewer for the effort and constructive remarks.
Some corrections and suggestions are given below:
The reviewer wrote: Page 4, Lines 152-154: please correct the size of the letters in the first sentence.
Our reply: The correction has been made.
The reviewer wrote: Page 4, Line 157: replace the value 366.7 mm with one presented in Table 1 (366.4 mm).
Our reply: The correction has been made.
The reviewer wrote: Page 4, Line 169: please correct the size of the letters in the part "cultivars (ranging from 12.0 to 14.7).
Our reply The correction has been made.
The reviewer wrote: Pages 5, 6, 7 and 8; Tables 2, 3, 4 and 5 should be placed in landscape format. Under all the tables, the following sentence should be corrected: Average values followed by different letters between the years and cultivars were not statistically different according to the Tukey's test. Please delete "not statistically different" because different letters denote significant differences between the years and cultivars.
Our reply: The correction has been made.
The reviewer wrote: Page 8, Line 277: replace the value 72.5 cm3 100-1 g with 74.5 cm3 100-1 g, which is the lowest value presented for juice yield in 2018.
Our reply: The correction has been made.
The reviewer wrote: Page 14, Line 396: correct the name of the cultivar Acco.
Our reply: The correction has been made.
Sincerely yours
Dr. Annalisa Tarantino
Email:[email protected]
Reviewer 5 Report
The experimental development of the article is correct. Also the presentation of results and discussion are correct.
Check the font size used in the ms
Check the units, example: line 83: kg/tree, and line 112: mg-1
Adde the space separation between text and references, throughout the ms, example “transformation[]”, line 141
References according autor guide: unify, some appear with an underlined name, publication in italic, in some there is a double “,”.
Modify [22,23,24] to [22-24],
Check units: sec-1?, nL-1?
Change std. dev., for correct abbreviation SD
Line 395 ‘Dente di cavallo of the lo’
In the abstract I could present the most interesting characteristics of each cultivar
The abstract states that "Both 'Dente di cavallo' and 'Wonderful' had significantly higher phenolic content and antioxidant activity than the other cultivars ". However, in Figure 2B the antioxidant activity of Wonderful is similar to Mollar and Acco, and lower than D. cavallo. Clarify this end.
Could you please include some images of the different pomegranate cultivars and juices?
Author Response
Reviewer 5
The authors sincerely thank you and the reviewer for the effort and constructive remarks
The reviewer wrote
Check the font size used in the ms
Check the units, example: line 83: kg/tree, and line 112: mg -1
Adde the space separation between text and references, throughout the ms, example
“transformation[]”, line 141
References according autor guide: unify, some appear with an underlined name, publication in
italic, in some there is a double “,”.
Modify [22,23,24] to [22-24],
Check units: sec -1 ?, nL -1 ?
Change std. dev., for correct abbreviation SD
Line 395 ‘Dente di cavallo of the lo’
Our reply: We have corrected in the text all the above mistakes.
The reviewer wrote: The abstract states that "Both 'Dente di cavallo' and 'Wonderful' had significantly higher phenolic content and antioxidant activity than the other cultivars ". However, in Figure 2B the antioxidant activity of Wonderful is similar to
Mollar and Acco, and lower than D. cavallo. Clarify this end.
Our reply: We have correct the sentences in the abstract as follow:
Both ‘Dente di cavallo’ and ‘Wonderful’ had significantly higher phenolic content than the other cultivars, while Dente di cavallo’ showed the significantly highest antioxidant activity.
The reviewer wrote: Could you please include some images of the different pomegranate cultivars and juices?
Our reply: We can include only the images of fruits (The caption must be formatted in Englsh).
Sincerely yours
Dr. Annalisa Tarantino
Email:[email protected]
Reviewer 6 Report
The article contains valuable and detailed scientific data on the varieties of Punica granatum L.
Information on the role of soil and climatic conditions in the cultivation of Punica granatum L. should be added in the introduction, as soil and climatic conditions are discussed in the results.
It is advisable to pay attention to references 13 and 23 (these refer to cereal crops; it is not clear how this relates to fruit crop research?).
The authors used 42 references to scientific articles, of which 40% in the last 10 years, and only 16% in the last 5 years.
More papers from the last 5-10 years should be cited.
The article can be recommended for publication after the remarks have been corrected
The article contains valuable and detailed scientific data on the varieties of Punica granatum L.
Information on the role of soil and climatic conditions in the cultivation of Punica granatum L. should be added in the introduction, as soil and climatic conditions are discussed in the results.
It is advisable to pay attention to references 13 and 23 (these refer to cereal crops; it is not clear how this relates to fruit crop research?).
The authors used 42 references to scientific articles, of which 40% in the last 10 years, and only 16% in the last 5 years.
More papers from the last 5-10 years should be cited.
The article can be recommended for publication after the remarks have been corrected
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
I am sending you 2 reviews (n. 5 and 6) because yesterday I mistakenly sent the 6 revision to the fifth review . I apologize for this, I wish you sincere greetings.
Reviewer 5
The authors sincerely thank you and the reviewer for the effort and constructive remarks
The reviewer wrote
Check the font size used in the ms
Check the units, example: line 83: kg/tree, and line 112: mg -1
Adde the space separation between text and references, throughout the ms, example
“transformation[]”, line 141
References according autor guide: unify, some appear with an underlined name, publication in
italic, in some there is a double “,”.
Modify [22,23,24] to [22-24],
Check units: sec -1 ?, nL -1 ?
Change std. dev., for correct abbreviation SD
Line 395 ‘Dente di cavallo of the lo’
Our reply: We have corrected in the text all the above mistakes.
The reviewer wrote: The abstract states that "Both 'Dente di cavallo' and 'Wonderful' had significantly higher phenolic content and antioxidant activity than the other cultivars ". However, in Figure 2B the antioxidant activity of Wonderful is similar to
Mollar and Acco, and lower than D. cavallo. Clarify this end.
Our reply: We have correct the sentences in the abstract as follow:
Both ‘Dente di cavallo’ and ‘Wonderful’ had significantly higher phenolic content than the other cultivars, while Dente di cavallo’ showed the significantly highest antioxidant activity.
The reviewer wrote: Could you please include some images of the different pomegranate cultivars and juices?
Our reply: We can include only the images of fruits (The caption must be formatted in Englsh).
Reviewer 6
The authors sincerely thank you and the reviewer for the effort and constructive remarks
Some corrections and suggestions are given below:
- The reviewer wrote:.Information on the role of soil and climatic conditions in the cultivation of Punica granatum L. should be added in the introduction, as soil and climatic conditions are discussed in the results.
Our reply: We have added some information and references on the climatic adaptation of the pomegranate in the introduction as follow:
Pomegranate is well adapted to areas with diverse pedoclimatic conditions as to hot and dry areas, and successfully grown in Mediterranean countries (Karapetsi et al., 2021).
Pomegranate is known to be fairly drought tolerant, although under deficit irrigation regimes it showed a significant decrease in fruit yield and quality (Galindo et al., 2017); Tarantino et al. 2021). However, this response depends on the specific cultivar and characteristics of each Lazare, (Adiba et al. 2021).
References
Karapetsi L.,, , Pantelidis G. , Pratsinakis E.D. , Drogoudi P. and Madesis P. (2021). Fruit quality traits and genotypic characterization in a pomegranate ex situ (Punica granatum L.). collection in Greece. Agriculture ,11, 482. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture11060482
- The reviewer wrote It is advisable to pay attention to references 13 and 23 (these refer to cereal crops; it is not clear how this relates to fruit crop research?)
References 13: Ventrella, D., Charfeddine, M., Moriondo, M., Rinaldi, M.; Bindi, M. (2012). Agronomic adaptation strategies under climate change for winter durum wheat and tomato in southern Italy: Irrigation and nitrogen fertilization. Reg. Environ. Chang., 12, 407–412.
Our reply : This reference refers only to the climatic characteristics where the research on the pomegranate was carried out, classified as typical semi-arid zone..
References 23: Zhao, H., Guo, B., Wei, Y., Zhang, B., Sun, S., Zhang, L., Junhui Y. 2011. Determining the geographic 496 origin of wheat using multielement analysis and multivariate statistics. J. Agric. Food Chem., 59, 4397- 497 4402. https//doi.org/10.1021/jf200108d.
Our reply: This reference refers only to the similar methodology of multivariate approach and statistically processed applying a Stepwise Discriminant Analysis, that we use in the experimental cultivar of pomegranate as discriminating sources.
- 3. The reviewer wrote The authors used 42 references to scientific articles, of which 40% in the last 10 years, and only 16% in the last 5 years. More papers from the last 5-10 years should be cited.
Our reply: We have improved the text by adding some sentences and recent references.
Pomegranate is well adapted to areas with diverse pedoclimatic conditions as to hot and dry areas, and successfully grown in Mediterranean countries (Karapetsi et al., 2021; Montefusco et al. 2021)
Pomegranate is known to be fairly drought tolerant, although under deficit irrigation regimes it showed a significant decrease in fruit yield and quality (Galindo et al., 2017); Tarantino et al. 2021). However, this response depends on the specific cultivar and characteristics of each Lazare, (Adiba et al. 2021)
References
Karapetsi L.,, , Pantelidis G. , Pratsinakis E.D. , Drogoudi P. and Madesis P. (2021). Fruit quality traits and genotypic characterization in a pomegranate ex situ (Punica granatum L.). collection in Greece. Agriculture ,11, 482. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture11060482
Montefusco, A., Durante, M. Migoni, D., De Caroli, M., Ilahy, R., Pék, Z., Helyes, L.,Panizzi, F.P., Mita, G., Piro, G., Lenucci, M.S. (2021). Analysis of the phytochemical composition of pomegranate fruit juices, peels and kernels: a comparative study on four cultivars grown in southern Italy Plants (Basel), 10(11): 2521l. doi: 10.3390/plants10112521y
Adiba, A., Hssaini, L., Haddioui, A., Hamdani, A., Charafi, J., Iraqui,S., Randozzi, E. (2021). Pomegranate plasticity to water stress: attempt to understand interactions between cultivar, year and stress level. Helion, 7 (6) : e07403.doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e07403
.
Lazare, S., Lyu, Y., Yermiyahu, U., Heler, Y., Ben-Gal, A., Holland, D., & Dag, A. (2020). Optimizing nitrogen application for growth and productivity of pomegranates. Agronomy, 10(3), 366. Agronomy 2020, 10(3), 366; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy10030366
Tarantino A., Frabboni L., Disciglio G. (2021). Water-Yield Relationship and Vegetative Growth of Wonderful Young Pomegranate Trees under Deficit Irrigation Conditions in Southeastern Italy
Horticulturae, 7, 79. https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae7040079
Sincerely yours
Dr. Annalisa Tarantino
Email:[email protected]
Round 2
Reviewer 5 Report
After receiving the authors' responses to the comments from the first review, they have considered all suggestions
Please check the abbreviation for:
a) Second: according to IS the correct abbreviation is “s” (Table 1)
b) Litre: can be abbreviated as “L” or “l” both forms are correct, but the authors would be consistent. Once they choose one of the forms it must be used in the whole manuscript:
Line 81: 2 l h-1
Line 151: mg L-1
Author Response
The authors sincerely thank you and the reviewer for the effort and constructive remarks
The authors have corrected the issues in the paper.
