Effect of Some Biostimulants on the Vegetative Growth, Yield, Fruit Quality Attributes and Nutritional Status of Apple

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors, compliments on the significant and interesting study. There is one major issue with the English style and usage, and several minor suggestions.

Line 34 treatment

Line 39 Rosaceae

Line 40 fruits fruit in the world. Divide the sentence here.

Line 86 Seaweed extracts is  are good. This is an example of how English needs to be improved. Please significantly improve the English throughout the entire manuscript. 

Line 168 what does this mean? 'vegetative growth regulators'

Due to poor English, many parts can easily be misunderstood. 

Figure 1, please mark the boxes as a, b, c, and d; and explain them further. 

There is no need to repeat this part constantly, it was stated in the M&M section: 'than the other applied in 2021 and 2022'.

Line 284: Besides, moringa is rich in.... moringa or moringa extracts? 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript entitled “Apple performance as affected by the foliar application of some biostimulants” and authored by Walid F. A. Mosa , and colleagues, deals with investigation of the potential effects derived from the application of different typologies of biostimulants after foliar application.

The manuscript contains information that can seriously contribute to knowledge in this field. Several typos are present in the main text. However, I do not feel that this would be a problem that would compromise its publication in Horticulture. Instead, the main problem relates to the fact that the authors do not seem to be experts in biostimulants and their use. This can be guessed from the way the introduction was structured. Due to the way the article is presented and to the lack of information provided in the introduction, the article should be rejected. It resembles the approach a student would give to a scientific article, and not that of experts in the field. Perhaps the authors severely underestimated this manuscript, and did not pay the slightest attention to very important details. However, some data merit publication. Accordingly, I would like to give the authors the opportunity to strongly revise the manuscript following the instructions.

Below I list a number of problems that the authors should solve:

TITLE: The title scarcely describes the purpose of the manuscript and/or the achievements of the authors. I strongly suggest its modification.

AFFILIATION SECTION: please fix the formatting of this section.

ABSTRACT: this section is a little problematic. It should include (i) a small description of the state of the art; (ii) a quick mention of the used methodologies; (iii) focus on the main results obtained; and (iv) a concluding sentence reporting future research prospects. Please fix (max 200 words).

KEYWORDS: The keywords should be completely changed. The utility of these terms is to facilitate the search of the article using common scientific search engines (PubMed, GoogleScholar, Scopus, etc.), which rely on the terms contained in title, abstract, and keywords. Consequently, using terms that are already in these sections as keywords is inappropriate. I strongly suggest that the keywords be changed before re-submission and add new ones (max 10).

INTRODUCTION:

This section is a little confusing. Specifically:

(i) The authors at the beginning describe and introduce Malus domestica. However, no information is reported regarding the nutritional profile of this fruit. This point is very important since the authors aim to evaluate the effect of the biostimulant on several parameters related to fruit quality and nutritional profile.

(i) The authors approximately report the state of the art relative to agriculture in the first lines of the introduction (38-47). However, it is not very clear why we need ecological solutions in agriculture. Surely it is not because fertilizers are expensive, as reported by the authors (line 45). Perhaps the authors meant to say that the excessive use of chemical fertilizers leads to further environmental pollution and that it is not possible to continue using agrochemicals in the future to obtain food, considering also the serious problems of climate change and rapid population growth? I encourage the authors to read this bibliography, and bring it back if they feel it is necessary: 10.3390/su11174575; 10.3390/agriculture11060557; 10.3390/plants10081533

(ii) Before discussing the products used for their experimental trial, the authors should describe and define what biostimulants are, how they are legislated, and why their use is encouraged. Please, insert this information in line 47. I strongly suggest to read these articles: 10.1007/s00344-018-9853-4; 10.3390/metabo10120505; 10.3390/agriculture11060557; 10.3390/plants10081533

(iii) Line 47 - 99 should be considerably shortened. This information can be moved in discussion section. Of course, the authors may hint at the types of biostimulants used in their trial, however, these should simply be mentioned. It is also not well understood why exactly the authors evaluated the effect of these types of biostimulants. They should come up with a plausible explanation. Perhaps they are the best-selling types of biostimulants? The least expensive ones? Or perhaps the most environmentally sustainable ones?

METHODS: The methods described in the manuscript should be more comprehensive. For example, "In June 2021-2022, fruit yield was measured for tree (kg) and for hectare (tons)" is not sufficient. The authors are not writing a telegram, they can also spend a couple of additional words to explain how they weighed the fruits. Did they weigh all the fruit? Only a portion of it? What instrument did they use to weigh them? What brand? I would like to point out that this problem is present throughout the section. Consequently, I strongly recommend a review of it.

RESULTS:

(i) in all the tables, the lowercase should be moved in uppercase of each respective number. Moreover, the meaning of each acronym should be explained in table footnotes. Standard deviation is missing.

(ii) the way the figures were presented is not acceptable. Standard deviations are missing; different fonts and sizes were used for all the figures. The style and quality is low. Figure 1 is an emblem of how a figure should not be presented in scientific manuscript. Please remake figures using the same style, fonts, and colors. And, including standard deviation and statistical analysis when it is necessary.

CONCLUSION: should be more argued. An opening sentence should be added.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors thank you for implementing the necessary changes. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Authors addressed all my concerns. The manuscript is now suitable as publication.