PONE-D-21-00083

Effects of Water and Fertilizer Coupling on the Physiological Characteristics and Growth of Rabbiteye Blueberry

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Wang,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Mohammad Golam Mostofa, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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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: Partly

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: This study searches for suitable combinations of water and fertilizers to improve the morpho-physiological and biochemical adaptations of Rabbiteye Blueberry. Blueberry is an emerging cosmopolitan fruit tree in recent years, has been promoted on a trial basis in various provinces and cities of Southern China including in Guizhou Province. For the growth and high fruit production of Rabbiteye Blueberry, the optimal water and fertilizer is very essential and authors have found some optimal water and fertilizers rate to improve growth of Rabbiteye Blueberry. However, I think the manuscript can be made much stronger if some major revision work is been done before its acceptance for publication in PLOS ONE.

1. The manuscript should be thoroughly revised with native English speaker. In many cases sentences have no logical flow and therefore it is difficult to find author's message.

Abstract

2. Line 32-36: In abstract author mentioned maximum level of irrigation water and fertilizer application improved photosynthetic capacity in line 32-34. Whereas, in line 34-35 author stated high fertilizer–medium water treatment increased Chlorophyll contents. Again, in line 35-36 they mentioned medium fertilizer–medium water treatment increased Chlorophyll contents, which is very confusing and contradictory with one another. Please correct it.

3. Line 34-36: Please indicate clearly which treatment combination increased leaf-soluble protein.

4. Line 40-42: Author should be more careful during writing chemical formula. Please check the whole manuscript to fix similar kind of error.

Introduction

5. Line 60: Please replace hm-2 with international unit throughout the manuscript.

Materials and Methods

6. Please clearly indicate plant to plant and line to line distance in this section.

7. Line 129-136: Authors have mentioned that they used 65º c dry sample to measure Chlorophyll content, SOD activity and MDA content using protocol of Mahawar et al. 2018, 2019 and Khator et al. 2020. However, it was found that above mentioned authors used fresh samples to measure these variables, which is contradictory with the sample used by authors and their reference. Give procedure in details.

8. Line 142-150: It is not clear that which parameters authors included under membership value and which parameters included under anti-membership value. As author recommend optimal water and fertilizer rate with the help of membership value therefore it is very important to know which parameters belongs to membership value and which parameters included under anti-membership value. However, author did not mention it clearly in this section. Author can follow Roy et al. (2021) Agricultural Water Management 246, 106712 to make this portion clearer for reader.

Results

9. It is suggested to revise the results portion to make a clear comparison of different treatments with control treatment.

10. Line 160-161: Make a clear comparison either water and fertilizer caused increased or decreased growth indexes compare to control.

11. Line 179-180: Again, I suggest to make a clear comparison either water and fertilizer caused increased or decreased growth indexes compare to control.

12. Line 182-183: Same as above.

13. Line 187-189: Increase of MDA contents indicates plants membrane damage then how increase of MDA content under low/medium fertilizer-high water could be conductive to leaf growth?

14. Line 217: Author mentioned that F1W4 represents the lowest membership function value however table 8 represented that CK had lowest membership function value. Please correct it

15. Line 224-225: No appropriate in here, suggested to delete.

Discussion

16. Please, avoid re-mentioning results repeatedly in the discussion. This was already mentioned in the Results section. What happens with the nutrients and the lack of interaction between the doses of N and P? Why does that happen? Please explain.

17. Line 232-233: What is the actual relation of this sentence with the current study?

18. Line 235-237: What is the actual relation of this sentence with the current study?

19. Line 237-240: Discussion needs to be focused on mechanism rather simply description of verification of results. What kind of strategy is being employed by selected plants and give appropriate mechanism why this happened?

20. Line 240-243: This sentence is not clear, please rephrase.

21. Line 248-250: Author cited a huge number of Chinese Journal reference; it is suggested to reduce this number and add appropriate International Journal reference.

22. Line 290-295: This portion is the simple description of the cluster analysis results and quite similar with L 220-224. Revise this and focus on key points results and discuss with appropriate mechanism.

Table 8

23. Line 467: Why gas-exchange parameters such as Pn, Tr, Ci, Gs and WUE were not included in the Membership Function? If author include these parameters calculate accordingly maybe the average membership value and ranking will be changed.

Reviewer #2: Overall comments

The manuscript entitled “Effects of Water and Fertilizer Coupling on the Physiological Characteristics and Growth of Rabbiteye Blueberry” seems to be well designed. In my opinion, the MS should be accepted for publication after addressing few simple issues.

Specific comments

(a)Author’s measures two oxidative stress parameters (MDA and SOD activity) however authors didn’t give any explanation why these two parameters were considered for investigation and their relationship with fertilizer and irrigation doses either in introduction or discussion section.

(b) Authors used plenty of common names of different plant species in the discussion section. Authors should use scientific name along with their common names viz., Cucumber (Cucumis sativus).

(c)Plenty of type-setting errors were found throughout the MS. Authors should follow the journal guidelines in writing reference in the reference section.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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PONE-D-21-00083R1

Effects of Water and Fertilizer Coupling on the Physiological Characteristics and Growth of Rabbiteye Blueberry

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Wang,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jun 17 2021 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Shafaqat Ali

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

Reviewers have now commented on your paper. One reviewer recommend minor revision and the other one accept. If you are prepared to undertake the work required, I would be pleased to reconsider your paper for publication.

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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: (No Response)

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: Comments to the Author

This is a much-improved version of a paper I have seen before and the authors have addressed all the issues raised. However, I still feel it needs some works before it is publishable.

L163-166: I think that this experiment was not conducted in a plastic shed and no pots also used in here. Moreover, author used membership function not integrated growth performance (IGP) in their analysis. Therefore, it is suggested to revise these sentences according to the experimental design.

L190-191: "and, by extension" -What is the actual meaning of this?

L256-257: Please mention the scientific name for strawberry and spruce also. Please the whole manuscript to fix such error.

L65: Please mention the scientific name of orange in here.

L293-294: Sentence is not clear please revise it.

L318: Sentence is not clear.

L417: Author should be more careful during writing the names of the authors name in the reference section. For example: in 23 number reference the author’s name will be Mostofa MG not Mostfa MG.

Reviewer #2: The authors revised the MS according to my previous comments. The authors also amend the corrections of other reviewers.

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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: Yes: Rana Roy, PhD

Department of Agroforestry & Environmental Science

Sylhet Agricultural University

Sylhet 3100, Bangladesh.

Reviewer #2: Yes: Professor Dr Mohammad Anwar Hossain

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Effects of Water and Fertilizer Coupling on the Physiological Characteristics and Growth of Rabbiteye Blueberry

PONE-D-21-00083R2

Dear Dr. Wang,

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.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Shafaqat Ali

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

As both reviewers recommend your MS for publication. I am delighted to accept your manuscript for publication

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: The authors have addressed all the issues raised and now the manuscript can be accepted for publication.

Reviewer #2: The authors revised the MS based on reviewers comments. In my opinion the MS should be accepted for publication.

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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: Yes: Dr. Rana Roy, Department of Agroforestry & Environmental Science, Sylhet Agricultural University, Sylhet 3100, Bangladesh.

Reviewer #2: Yes: Professor Mohammad Anwar Hossain