Seed Priming Enhances Seed Germination and Morphological Traits of Lactuca sativa L. under Salt Stress

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In this manuscript (Manuscript ID: seeds-1642940), potassium nitrate, gibberellic acid and distilled water was used as a pre-treatment to investigate their potential priming effect in lettuce seeds during germination under salt stress. The Authors measured germination parameters, growth and membrane permeability of the seedlings to determine which pre-treatment was effective in the alleviation of 100 mM NaCl stress in germinating seeds. They found that distilled water (hydro-priming, HP) can be used as a priming method under salt stress since it synchronized germination, alleviated membrane damage and reduced the degree of growth inhibition in lettuce seeds.

English language is fine, however minor spell check is required and typos within the text need to be corrected. I suggest correcting the final manuscript carefully.

A few examples of typos:

            line 13: “…“Burpee bibb’…”

            line 13 and 89: potassium nitrate and gibberellic acid can be written with lowercase letters.

            line 19: “radicle were highest in HP lettuce”

            line 48: “…“two-phase growth response to SS’…”

            line 87: “The susceptibility of Burpee Bibb was”

            line 206: “was recorded highest in the HP”

            lines 246-248 “section may be divided by subheadings. It should provide a concise and precise description of the experimental results, their interpretation, as well as the experimental conclusions that can be drawn.”, and in line 256 “Authors” should be deleted.

            Please correct line 268 “higher plants l contain 100 mM”; line 269 “the cytosolic Na⁺ an d Cl^- can increase”; line 305: “the 100 mM NaCl salt treatments.”; line 352: “that burpee bibb lettuce”

Further remarks:

In Abstract and in Materials and methods the whole scientific name of lettuce should be added e.g. Lactuca sativa L. var. or cv. Burpee Bibb.

Distilled water was used as hydro-priming (HP) in the study, and it was abbreviated in the Introduction. In my opinion it can be used the HP abbreviation further on throughout the manuscript and it is unnecessary to repeat the abbreviation. I suggest also to use HP on the diagrams instead of Hydro, and add explanation of the abbreviation in the Figures legends (Figs. 2, 3 4 and 5). In Figures the legend should be corrected to contain all the important data. Standard deviation can be abbreviated as SD.

Please, refer to Figure 1 where the adequate literature is mentioned in lines 49-50.

It is not clear whether the Authors refer to Hydro-priming or several kinds of priming methods in line 59. Please reconsider and correct sentences in lines 59-67.

It is confusing that the Authors refer sometimes in the manuscript to the 0 mM NaCl treatment as the second salt treatment. In my opinion it would be clearer to state in the Materials and methods or in the Results section that 0 mM NaCl treatment was used as control treatment and to discuss only the effect of one salt treatment (100 mM NaCl).

In Materials and Methods section, 2.1. subsection it remains unclear why 0.05% of potassium nitrate was used for priming when in Mahmoudi et al. (2012) 0.5% of potassium nitrate was used. Why did the Authors change the concentration of this pre-treatment? It remains also unclear if potassium nitrate and gibberellic acid was dissolved in distilled water or in nutrient solution (e.g. Hoagland’s solution), and the question is the same in case of NaCl treatment. These information should be added to subsections 2.1. and 2.2.

I suggest to change 2.4. subsection title.

Author Response

Please see comments to review's edits. Thank you!

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

In this study, the authors have used several priming treatments in order to enhance germination under salt stress. In the present study, the HP seeds were found to be better synchronized under salt stress. They have concluded that HP can be a good priming method to synchronize germination and increase FM and DM by creating the least osmotic stress and ion toxicity in lettuce under salt stress.

The study topic is interesting and informative, and the overall manuscript is written very well. This manuscript covers overall knowledge on this topic. I suggest authors review the whole manuscript carefully and correct all the mistakes. Authors should improve the grammar, spelling, punctuation, and overall English of the manuscript.

The introduction and discussion of the manuscript need further improvement, from general to specific. In the introduction, discuss the effect of abiotic stress on plants by citing the following recent articles.

10.32604/biocell.2022.017316, 10.3390/ijms22179175, and 10.1038/s41576-021-00413-0

 

Before recommending this article for publication, some shortcomings should be resolved.

 

Line 18: Write the full form of HP, DM, and FM. The abbreviations should be explained in full during the first mention.

Line 28-31: Please update the following references. Cited references are too old to justify the statement.

Lines 28-29: Thirty-four…….salt accumulation worldwide. Please update the reference.

Lines 29-30: Around 1.5 million hectares of land are affected by high salt accumulation each year [3,4]. Update the references.

Lines 30-31: It is speculated that 50% of the cultivable land will turn into non-arable land by the mid-21st 31 century [5]. Please update the reference.

Lines 48-49: “two-phase growth response to SS’. Please keep it consistent.

Fig. 1. Please mention the exact time (days).

Line 64: effects, such as

Lines 80-82: Please modify the sentences. Same sentences have been written in the abstract.

Lines 98 to 99: How the primed and non-primed seeds were treated with either 0 mM or 100 mM Sodium chloride (NaCl) concentration?

Line 148: indicators, such as

Lines 281 and 282: It is better to write common and scientific names of the crops mentioned in the text. Please check the whole manuscript carefully and write common and scientific names of all the species. The scientific names of the species and the names of the genes must be italicized in the manuscript.  

maize, barley, Chinese cabbage

Pea, maize, rice, alfalfa

Please keep them consistent. Write either small or capital letters.

Line 296: I guess there is an extra space in ( Ψ

Author Response

Please see comments to reviewer's edits. Thank you!

Author Response File: Author Response.docx