Far-Red Light Affects Stomatal Opening and Evapotranspiration of Sweet Basil
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
“ Far-red light affects stomatal opening and evapotranspiration of sweet basil” completed by Park et al descripted changes of stomatal conductance, evapotranspiration, photosynthesis rate and chlorophyll fluorescence in response to a ten day treatment with far red light. They have concluded that the far red light increased stomatal aperture area, although it did not influence the photosynthetic rate and dry weight. The experiment design is very interesting and significant. However, the interpretation of the data is not precise and the conclusion needs reconsideration. The author should still consider following two points:
1. Figure 5C describes the changes of stomatal aperture area 1, 4, 7, 10 days under the far red light treatment. From the figure, it is clear that the stomatal aperture area of all the treatment decreased, while the sweet basil without far red light treatment decreased faster than those under far red light. In this respect, I have two questions: (1) What is the reason for the overall stomatal aperture area decrease? (2) The far red light actually did not increase the stomatal aperture area, but only hindered its reduction. The data may not be directly interpreted in this way.
2. The chlorophyll fluorescence data did not indicate the decrease of photosynthetic light reaction rate. The increased stomatal opening might give hint to the increased intercellular CO2 concentration. But the photosynthetic rate under far red light treatment decreased significantly. What is the explaination of this phenomenon?
Based on these questions, I do not suggest the manuscript to be published at this state.
Author Response
We wish to express our gratitude for your valuable guidance and support. Your thorough feedback and suggestions have certainly improved our manuscript. In response to the reviewer’s feedback, we have diligently revised our manuscript titled “Far-red light affects stomatal opening and evapotranspiration of sweet basil”. We agree with the reviewer’s comments and have incorporated the suggestions into the revised manuscript. Please refer to the attached file for more comprehensive responses to the reviewer’s comments.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Park and coworkers studied the effects of far-red light on the growth of sweet basil. With well-designed experiments, the authors demonstrated how the stomatal development, photosynthetic activities, and evapotranspiration changed to acclimate to different far-red light intensities. The topic is interesting, and the experiments seem carefully performed. I appreciate that the results are presented concisely and logically. I believe that this is significant work and is worthy of Horticulturae.
A few minor comments:
1. Some key observations occurred between days 7 and 10. For example, in Figure 3B, the Chl content started decreasing after day 7. Similarly, in Figure 5C, the stomatal aperture area values were different after day 7. Have the authors considered extending the DAT to characterize the trend fully?
2. Can the authors explain why stomatal density increased from DAT1 to DAT4 in Figure 5A?
3. The authors may want to change the layout of Figure 5. For example, the panels can be positioned horizontally.
Overall the English language of this paper is solid, with some minor typos that can be easily fixed. My only suggestion is to rewrite the following sentence (Line 229-233): "The higher levels of FR, which entails a lower R:FR ratio, induce plants to be relatively taller compared with those that used FR0, as the amount of active phytochrome (photoreceptor protein, Pfr) decreases, thus allowing it to decrease to interact with a suppressor of stem cell elongation, which leads to upregulate auxin and gibberellic acid biosynthetic pathways causing stem cell elongation."
Author Response
We wish to express our gratitude for your valuable guidance and support. Your thorough feedback and suggestions have certainly improved our manuscript. In response to the reviewer’s feedback, we have diligently revised our manuscript titled “Far-red light affects stomatal opening and evapotranspiration of sweet basil”. We agree with the reviewer’s comments and have incorporated the suggestions into the revised manuscript. Please refer to the attached file for more comprehensive responses to the reviewer’s comments.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear authors,
Your MS has a potential and included various aspects of FR responses and eventual recommendation for controlled production. But:
- The basic knowledge about the photomorphogenesis is defining responses directly independent of photosynthesis. Indirectly, many reactions can be related, the life is whole related.
- To explain better your responses, search about the three basic types of photomorphogenic responses mediated by phytochrome. That will help you to understand what you made.
- Tho previously mentioned responses will help you to define your hypotheses.
- SPAD is not chlorophyll content measurement, it is relative chlorophyll!
- Define well the evapotranspiration (substrate + transpiration, give the mass of each component, the added water every day, not only seconds of irrigation).
- The statistics is not OK. You cannot use blocks as the third factor, only if you had various substrates for each block. You must recalculate, use completely random block system with two factors (FR level and time moment).
- The factor responses level must be defined, if FR level was expressed by small-case letters, use upper-case letters to express the time responses. Side by side to each FR response. This will help to understand the interaction effects.
- Discussion can start with novelty. Develop the discussion focused on new and your results. Please, take care about the distinctions about photomorphogenesis and photosynthesis. Respond to your hypotheses and use three types of Photomorphogenetic reactions as a base to explain your results. Explain the basil reactions also as its origin as a species from grassland of open areas, I think…
- Conclude as response to your hypothesis. Give the recommendation at the end.
- Detailed observations are done in attached ‘pdf’ version of the manuscript.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
We wish to express our gratitude for your valuable guidance and support. Your thorough feedback and suggestions have certainly improved our manuscript. In response to the reviewer’s feedback, we have diligently revised our manuscript titled “Far-red light affects stomatal opening and evapotranspiration of sweet basil”. We revised the manuscript according to the reviewer’s comments and suggestions. Please refer to the attached file for more comprehensive responses to the reviewer’s comments.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear authors,
You did not improve your manuscript having statistical errors. The statistics is not correct, three-way ANOVA cannot be used to include blocks as a third factor, in an experimental design. That’s the randomly block design with two factors: Also:
- The volume of water added daily had not been informed but was required.
- The basic knowledge about the photomorphogenesis is defining responses directly independent of photosynthesis.
- To explain better your responses, search about the three basic types of photomorphogenic responses mediated by phytochrome. That will help you to understand what you made.
- Tho previously mentioned responses will help you to define your hypotheses.
- The factor responses level must be defined, if FR level was expressed by small-case letters, use upper-case letters to express the time responses. Side by side to each FR response. This will help to understand the interaction effects.
- Discussion can start with novelty. It was only larger than in the first version, but not better. Develop the discussion focused on new and your results. Please, take care about the distinctions about photomorphogenesis and photosynthesis. Respond to your hypotheses and use three types of photomorphogenetic reactions as a base to explain your results. Explain the basil reactions also as its origin as a species from grassland of open areas, I think…
OK
Author Response
We wish to express our gratitude for your suggestions. We revised the manuscript according to the reviewer’s comments and suggestions. Please refer to the attached file for more comprehensive responses to the reviewer’s comments.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 3
Reviewer 3 Report
I am pleased with results after three revisions. Congradulations.
