Quality and Flavor of ‘Aliza’ Fruit: A Unique Pomelo × Mandarin Hybrid
, Adi Doron-Faigenboim 5, Ron Porat 1,* and Nir Carmi 3Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This manuscript, is presenting analytical, sensory descriptive, and hedonic analyses of a commercial new citrus hybrid between pomelo and mandarin, called 'Aliza', which was compared with mandarin, orange, pomelo and grapefruit samples.
The research is thoroughly executed, and the content of the manuscript is easy to read. The english language is fluent. The findings show, that the new hybrid is unique in its flavor as compared with the other four samples, and also preferred for flavor by the consumers in the study.
In general, there is very little to comment on this manuscript. Just a few questions to the materials and methods, and the results.
The plant material: How did you choose the four other sample cultivars to be compared with 'Aliza'?
From descriptive sensory analyses. How were the formal taste sessions executed? Perhaps a redundant question, but were they served blind, and coded, and randomized? In replicates? How many sessions in all. How did you capture the data?
From the consumer acceptance test, how were the samples served? Blind, coded, randomized?
Consumer preference test. This is a ranking test by preference.
Suggestion for line 118: "were asked to rank samples by preference as the first, second, third, four, and fifth choice".
Results:
For the descriptive sensory analyses were the samples significantly different for all attributes? (e.g citrus odor?).
In general, apart from some missing details about the sensory analyses, there is very little to comment on this manuscript.
Author Response
The research is thoroughly executed, and the content of the manuscript is easy to read. The english language is fluent. The findings show, that the new hybrid is unique in its flavor as compared with the other four samples, and also preferred for flavor by the consumers in the study. – Thank you for the positive response
In general, there is very little to comment on this manuscript. Just a few questions to the materials and methods, and the results.
The plant material: How did you choose the four other sample cultivars to be compared with 'Aliza'? – That is a good question. We chose major commercial pomelo, grapefruit, orange and mandarins varieties that ripen during the same time of 'Aliza' fruit. This is now indicated in line 73.
From descriptive sensory analyses. How were the formal taste sessions executed? Perhaps a redundant question, but were they served blind, and coded, and randomized? In replicates? How many sessions in all. How did you capture the data? – The samples were assigned with three-digit codes. We conducted several training sessions in which we also defined the sensory attributes. The data was captured by marking the scores with a pencil on a 100 mm scale. The final scores were provided in one test. We added some more information in section 2.3.
From the consumer acceptance test, how were the samples served? Blind, coded, randomized? – The samples of the consumer test were also assigned with three-digit codes. The samples were served as cut peeled segments. If necessary, I can send pictures.
Consumer preference test. This is a ranking test by preference. – Yes. The tasters were requested to rank their preferences.
Suggestion for line 118: "were asked to rank samples by preference as the first, second, third, four, and fifth choice". – Thank you for this comment. We changed the sentence according to your suggestion.
Results:
For the descriptive sensory analyses were the samples significantly different for all attributes? (e.g citrus odor?). – The results of the descriptive sensory test are presented in Fig. 3. It can be seen that we observed differences in particular attributes but not all.
In general, apart from some missing details about the sensory analyses, there is very little to comment on this manuscript. – Thanks again for your positive response
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper entitled “Quality and flavor of 'Aliza' fruit: A unique pomelo × mandarin 2 hybrid” mainly sets out to characterize the quality and flavor of 'Aliza' fruit compared with other commercial citrus fruit. The results could increase the understanding of the characterizations of 'Aliza' fruit and provide valuable information for the selective of breeding and cultivation of this fruit. However, the manuscript still has some questions to be addressed, a major revision is needed before publication.
1. Section 2.1. What’s the selection criteria and harvested maturity of all the fruit? The fruit qualities were closely related to the harvested maturity.
2. It is important to declare the determination site of the peel thickness. Since the peel thickness was different among the top, middle and bottom of the fruit.
3. Table1. The bold font was not necessary in this Table, since the different letters can well explain the significant difference among different kinds of fruit.
4. Table2. The retention indices in this manuscript were different. Why not chose DB-5 column for GC-MS analysis?
5. Figure 3. The fig. 3C seems to be different with other fig. 3s.
6. The value of the tropical odor in 'Aliza' fruit were significantly higher than this values in other citrus fruit. However, the data based on GC-MS did not exhibit high contents of fruity odor in 'Aliza' fruit. How to explain and compare these results?
7. Discussion. The author should add the wide discussion of obtained important results with other literature data related with the quality and flavor of citrus fruit. Not only just discuss the comparison among the five kinds of citrus fruit.
8. More lasted references should be added in this manuscript.
9. English editing is needed through the manuscript.
Author Response
1. Section 2.1. What’s the selection criteria and harvested maturity of all the fruit? The fruit qualities were closely related to the harvested maturity. – Thank you for the question. The harvesting maturity criteria included full color development (see Figure 1), and withstanding the minimum TSS and acidity levels determined by the Israeli Citrus Marketing Board. We now added more information on the ripening criteria in section 2.1.
2. It is important to declare the determination site of the peel thickness. Since the peel thickness was different among the top, middle and bottom of the fruit. – Thank you for the comment. We now indicated in section 2.2 that peel thickness was measured in the equatorial zone of the fruit.
3. Table1. The bold font was not necessary in this Table, since the different letters can well explain the significant difference among different kinds of fruit. – According to the reviewer's suggestion we removed the bold fonts in Table 1.
4. Table2. The retention indices in this manuscript were different. Why not chose DB-5 column for GC-MS analysis? – In Table 2 we indicated our calculated RI's using a DB-5 columN (2nd column) as well as officially published RI's on a DB-5 column (3rd column). It can be seen that the RI's are very similar meaning that the chemical identifications are correct.
5. Figure 3. The fig. 3C seems to be different with other fig. 3s. – All of the radar plots presented in Figure 3A-E are presented in the same format.
6. The value of the tropical odor in 'Aliza' fruit were significantly higher than this values in other citrus fruit. However, the data based on GC-MS did not exhibit high contents of fruity odor in 'Aliza' fruit. How to explain and compare these results? – We agree with this remark. In fact, we hoped to find some specific aroma volatiles particularly in 'Aliza' fruit but could not find any. Therefore, we indicated in the discussion chapter the following sentences: 1) "Despite its unique flavor, we have not detected any specific aroma volatiles that are unique to 'Aliza' fruit", and 2) "we suggest that the unique flavor of 'Aliza' fruit may be due to a unique combination of different chemical classes of aroma volatiles rather than from any unique aroma compounds". Nonetheless, this subject yet requires further research.
7. Discussion. The author should add the wide discussion of obtained important results with other literature data related with the quality and flavor of citrus fruit. Not only just discuss the comparison among the five kinds of citrus fruit. – According to the above comment I began to cite various papers demonstrating the TSS, acidity, color, flavor, etc. of oranges, grapefruit, etc., but I felt it is somewhat too exhausting. Instead, we added a new sentence indicating that "More detailed descriptions regarding the flavor characteristics of citrus fruit are discussed elsewhere. [15]" (lines 304-305).
8. More lasted references should be added in this manuscript. – Most of the cited papers in the reference list are from the last ten years, and some papers are very new. For example, USDA (2023), Guttman et al (2022), and Otieno et al. (2022).
9. English editing is needed through the manuscript. – The manuscript has been reviewed by a professional English languish Editor. If the Scientific Editor of the manuscript will request we may send an official certificate by the English Editor.
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
1.The fig. 3C is different with other fig. 3. Fig. 3C lacks the dots.
2. Only five references are from the lasted 5 years in this manuscript. More lasted references (in the lasted 5 years) should be added in this manuscript.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
1.The fig. 3C is different with other fig. 3. Fig. 3C lacks the dots - Thank you for noting us. We now corrected Fig. 3C and added the missing dots.
2. Only five references are from the lasted 5 years in this manuscript. More lasted references (in the lasted 5 years) should be added in this manuscript - Thank you for noting us. We now added in the Discussion chapter three more new references from 2022 (Refs. 22, 23, 24 - see below):
New refs
22. Li, Y., Li, X., Pan, S., & Xu, J. (2022). Rapid assessment of citrus fruits freshness by fuzzy mathematics combined with E-tongue and GC–MS. European Food Research and Technology, 1-12.
23. Pan, T., Kong, L., Zhang, X., Wang, Y., Zhou, J., Fu, Z., ... & Yu, Y. (2022). Fruit quality and volatile constituents of a new very early-ripening pummelo (Citrus maxima) cultivar ‘Liuyuezao’. Frontiers in Plant Science, 13.
24 Goh, R. M. V., Pua, A., Luro, F., Ee, K. H., Huang, Y., Marchi, E., ... & Yu, B. (2022). Distinguishing citrus varieties based on genetic and compositional analyses. Plos one, 17(4), e0267007.
