PONE-D-19-34837

Effects of supplemental irrigation on population dynamics, grain yield, and water use efficiency of two different spike-type wheat cultivars at jointing stage

PLOS ONE

Dear Mr Shang,

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Aimin Zhang, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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This work was financially supported by the National Special Support Program for High-level Talents, the Special Fund for Agro-scientific Research in the Public Interest (201503130), the Major Scientific and Technological Innovation Project of Shandong Province (2019JZZY010716), and the Taishan Industry Leader Talent Project of Shandong.

We note that one or more of the authors are employed by a commercial company: Zibo HeFeng Seed Technology co., ltd.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: In this study, Shang et al. investigated the effects of the different irrigation regimes on the tiller numbers, grain yield, and WUE in the two wheat cultivars (Shangnong 23 and Shannong 29) during the jointing stage. The results was interesting and could be beneficial for the practical field work in northern part of China, where the water deficit is one of the major issues limiting the crop yield. However, the manuscript was drafted poorly, with too many format/grammar mistakes. Please ask a native English-speaker to polish this paper. Here I would like point out two major issues: 1. The quality of all the figures are really bad, please use the higher-resolution ones; 2. The discussion is too short, just another simple version of the result part. Please rephrase this part; 3. Most of the references are from China, please try to read some English papers.

Reviewer #2: Improving the grain yield and water use efficiency (WUE) is very important for wheat production, the authors systematically investigated the effects of supplemental irrigation at jointing stage on grain yield and WUE with two wheat cultivars, and also characterized the population dynamics, Pn and Tr of apical leaves. The results provide detailed measurements and comprehensive view of the dynamic regulation of productive tillers.

My suggestions are as follows:

1. According to LSD test performed, the significance should be labeled properly.

2. The apical leaf Pn of main stem, I, and IV tillers were measured, how about other tillers?

3. The differences in spike number, grain weight and other traits between the two cultivars under different plan wetting layers should be discussed.

4. Conclusions should be more unequivocal. In abstract, “All in all, the irrigation brought soil water in the 0-20 cm profile to 100% field capacity is the most suitable supplemental irrigation …”, the related support data for this conclusion should more clear and correspondingly showed in the results parts.

5. There are some typographical errors or inaccurate words, such as page 3 line 72..., page 4 line 90, page 5 line 96.

6. The table 4 can be deleted.

7. The references need to be unified, for example, line 346,347, 368, and 406.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Wenshan Guo

Reviewer #2: No

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Effects of supplemental irrigation at the jointing stage on population dynamics, grain yield, and water-use efficiency of two different spike-type wheat cultivars

PONE-D-19-34837R1

Dear Dr. Shang,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it complies with all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you will receive an e-mail containing information on the amendments required prior to publication. When all required modifications have been addressed, you will receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will proceed to our production department and be scheduled for publication.

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With kind regards,

Aimin Zhang, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: the revised version of the manuscript is greatly improved and all of the comments raised from reviewers have been addressed.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No