PONE-D-21-23192PATH ANALYSIS BASED ON GENETIC ASSOCIATION OF YIELD COMPONENTS IN UPLAND COTTON VARIETIES METHDOLOGY USED IN SCREENING AND EVALUATION OF TWO DIVERSE BREEDING POPULATIONS WITH THE RELEASE OF RH-662 AND RH-668PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Bashir,

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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ACADEMIC EDITOR:

• I have now received comments from 2 reviewers both of which have recommended major revisions to your manuscript.
• Most of the sections need a thorough rewriting.
• Abstract must be rewritten with providing the details of the breeding populations.
• There are no clear hypothesis and objectives.
• The MM section must be split in different sub sections.
• Tables must be corrected as suggested.
• Language of the paper must be polished.
• The manuscript must be formatted according to formatting guidelines of Plos one
• If you are willing to do the work required, I will reconsider your paper for publication.
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  Please submit your revised manuscript by Oct 22 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'.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Shahid Farooq, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal requirements:

When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements.

1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf

2. In your Data Availability statement, you have not specified where the minimal data set underlying the results described in your manuscript can be found. PLOS defines a study's minimal data set as the underlying data used to reach the conclusions drawn in the manuscript and any additional data required to replicate the reported study findings in their entirety. All PLOS journals require that the minimal data set be made fully available. For more information about our data policy, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability.

Upon re-submitting your revised manuscript, please upload your study’s minimal underlying data set as either Supporting Information files or to a stable, public repository and include the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers within your revised cover letter. For a list of acceptable repositories, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-recommended-repositories. Any potentially identifying patient information must be fully anonymized.

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We will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide in your cover letter.

3. Please amend the manuscript submission data (via Edit Submission) to include author “Mussarat Shaheen, Muhammad Yousaf Ali, Sagheer Atta”

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

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: No

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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: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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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: I have reviewed the manuscript PATH ANALYSIS BASED ON GENETIC ASSOCIATION OF YIELD COMPONENTS IN UPLAND COTTON VARIETIES METHDOLOGY USED IN SCREENING AND EVALUATION OF TWO DIVERSE BREEDING POPULATIONS WITH THE RELEASE OF RH-662 AND RH-668 submitted by the authors. It is a well-designed study and deserved publication. However, some minor changes are needed which are given as under;

- Revise title

- Add MM part in the abstract

- Condense introduction section and add clear hypothesis and objectives

- Add details of statistical analysis of the data

- Please incorporate latest citation in the discussion section

- Format paper according to Plos ONe

- The paper can be accepted after incorporating these changes.

Reviewer #2: I have reviewed the manuscript "PATH ANALYSIS BASED ON GENETIC ASSOCIATION OF YIELD COMPONENTS IN UPLAND COTTON VARIETIES METHDOLOGY USED IN SCREENING AND EVALUATION OF TWO DIVERSE BREEDING POPULATIONS WITH THE RELEASE OF RH-662 AND RH-668".

I have annotated the attached file and asked for plenty of revisions over there. I give some of my recommendations as under;

1. The title of the manuscript is written wrong.

2. There is no opening/introductory sentence in the abstract section. There should be 1-2 sentences representing why study was necessary.

3. The abstract is full of abbreviations and new terminologies. These should be explained.

4. Introduction section has a bit of unnecessary informations. In fact, 30% of the introduction can be shifted to Discussion section.

5. According to my readings; the correlation of studied traits have already been reported in different studies. Perhaps, this should be tested in breeding populations to select the best one is the research gap. However, this research gap has not been indicated in the introduction section. There are no objectives/hypothesis given at the end of introduction section. Please revise your introduction section very carefully.

6. The MM section should be split into different parts. There are no information where the study was conducted. Soil and climatic attributes are also missing.

7. Statistical analysis needs a better explanation. The current explanation is vague.

8. Results need a clear writing style. Currently a correlation has been explained in 5-6 lines long sentences with the use of while 3-4 times within a sentence. Therefore, please get your manuscript edited from a NATIVE speaker.

9. The discussion is supported by a few old references in the first paragraph. There are no logics given for the obtained results. Therefore, this section must be completely rewritten.

10. Whole manuscript is not formatted according to author guidelines of Plos One. Please format your paper according to guidelines.

11. Tables need a careful attention. There are unnecessary spaces which must be deleted.

12. Tables should be incorporated within the text where these are cited for the first time.

I would like to see the revised version of the paper.

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6. 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

[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.

Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-21-23192_reviewer.pdf

Attachment

Submitted filename: manuscript.docx

PATH ANALYSIS BASED ON GENETIC ASSOCIATION OF YIELD COMPONENTS AND INSECTS PEST IN UPLAND COTTON VARIETIES

PONE-D-21-23192R1

Dear Dr. Bashir,

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,

Shahid Farooq, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers have now commented on your revised manuscript and recommended accepting it. Therefore, your manuscript has been accepted 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: All comments made by me on the first draft of this manuscript have been properly resolved by the authors. Therefore, the manuscript can. be accepted according to my opinion.

Reviewer #2: All questions asked by me for the manuscript PATH ANALYSIS BASED ON GENETIC ASSOCIATION OF YIELD COMPONENTS AND INSECTS PEST IN UPLAND COTTON VARIETIES has been answered properly by the authors. I recommend accepting the manuscript in its current form.

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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