PONE-D-20-18342

Response of oat morphologies, root exudates, and rhizosphere fungal communities to amendments in a saline-alkaline environment

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Liu,

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Birinchi Sarma, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

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Comments to the Author

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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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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: The topic is on the application of organic amendments to saline-alkaline soil recommended

as an agricultural strategy to improve crop productivity and soil health.

The manuscript is well presented;however, some details must be checked and corrected:

FIGURE 3. (A) iT CAN BE IMPROVED. Not to use colours and maybe to use different patterns.

To check for all figures presentation.

Reviewer #2: The authors described some interesting observation of soil amendments on root exudates and fungal communities in oat plants under saline alkaline conditions. Results from the study show that combined soil application of bio-fertilizer and rotten straw on tolerant Baiyan2 oat cultivar can be effective improving oat morphologies, soluble sugar in rhizosphere in a saline-alkaline environment. The bio-fertilizer amendment also significantly limited disease causing fungi.

Comments:

Materials and Methods: After how many days of soil amendments were the samples collected?

Results: Line 228-229: As per Table 1, a significant change in shoot dry biomass was observed between the oat cultivars (1.9b and 3.4a; different letters indicate significance). However, the text contradicts the result in the table and says no significant change in shoot dry biomass.

Line 267-268: Caoyou1 needs to be added "All tested organic acids except fumaric acid were

significantly reduced in treatments containing rotten straw (R and RF; Table 2) in Caoyou1".

Though the manuscript had necessary comparisons of their results with published results but the entire discussion lacks a quantitative description of each phenomenon. For e.g. Increase in a particular organic acid in root exudate can be explained along with their possible role. In addition, the authors state in their conclusion that "that co-application of a bio-fertilizer and rotten straw, along with a tolerant cultivar, is an effective method to improve crop productivity in saline-alkaline environments. Was any yield/productivity measured? If yes they can add the data or should say that this method can be adopted to improve crop productivity.

Minor corrections:

Line 77: Space between "often" and "affected"

Line 80-83: Reframe line 80-83

Line 82- Replace "benefit" with "beneficial"

Line 83-Space between "acid" and "in" in "acidin"

LINE 215: Expand ANOVA as analysis of variance

Line 261: Replace"Cayou1" with "Caoyou1"

Line 391- Replace "negative" with "negatively"

Line 391: Add "where" before "root"

Line 392: Rewrite the part “whatever plants grown in the non-sterilized and sterilized soils".

Line 398: Remove “to” in between "restricted to plant growth"

Line 425- "indicated" to be replaced with "indicates"

Line 459: Replace "related" with "relative"

Line 462: Replace "fungal observed richness" with "observed fungal richness"

Line 469: Replace "decreased" with "decrease"

Line 468-472: Reframe the sentence and check the need to write "not" between "could" and "prevent"

Figure 1: x-axis legend "e" missing from root volume

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Marcela Pagano

Reviewer #2: Yes: Akansha Jain

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Response of oat morphologies, root exudates, and rhizosphere fungal communities to amendments in a saline-alkaline environment

PONE-D-20-18342R1

Dear Dr. Liu,

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

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Kind regards,

Birinchi Sarma, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments: