PONE-D-21-37368Foliar-applied potassium coupled with moringa leaf extract improves growth, physiology and productivity of Kabuli Chickpea (Cicer aretinum L.) grown under varying sowing regimesPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Irshad,

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ACADEMIC EDITOR: Dear Authors,  Please improved the whole draft keeping in view the reviewers comments.==============================

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Adnan Noor Shah, 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: 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: Yes

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: Current study entitled “Foliar-applied potassium coupled with moringa leaf extract improves growth, physiology and productivity of Kabuli Chickpea (Cicer aretinum L.) grown under varying sowing regimes” contains novel information which can further strengthen the existing knowledge of the field. Scientists planned their study according to need of time. Moreover, the research area seems well motivated; data presented are sound; data analyses are technically correct and research findings support the claim and objectives properly made in the manuscript. Results are correctly presented and compared with existing knowledge of the field and I think results have some potential broader applicability. Please consider addressing following concerns and incorporate suggestions before any consideration to publish this work.

1. Title should be short, concise and meaningful. Please modify and make it more catchy.

2. Conclude all your results in a quantitative way at the end of your abstract. The study background in abstract is bit lengthy, make it concise.

3. In abstract portion you have mentioned respiration ratio while in your figures it is transpiration rate?

4. Figures presented in this paper are seven, merge some of the figures to make it less in number or add the data of figures in separate tables

5. This study is more related to environmental variations but in your paper meteorological data is missing

6. You have used the word sowing date I and II and in some sections you have used early and late sowing, which is quite confusing. Be consistent throughout the MS.

7. Mention the method of MLE extract preparation in materials and methods section or quote the appropriate reference e.g. Noor et al. 2016, Philipp. Agric. Scientist. Vol. 99 No. 2.

8. Give more details about the statistical analysis performed. Mention the package software name. ‘the means of the treatments will be equated by employing HSD’ correct the grammar. How the sowing dates were handled during analysis?

9. Improve the reporting language and avoid jargon. Directly state the results and treatments’ performance. Avoid using sentences used in the start of results. Authors must report their results in a quantitative way, give percent increase or decrease between the treatments. Make the results section concise and specific.

10. Replace ‘statistically at par’ with statistically similar.

11. Try to discuss results with recent literature and provide reasoning of the responses recorded.

12. Write the units for yield attributes in a standard way. Add proper source of fertilizers and in which form they were applied. Provide the details in M&M section as much possible. Write the source of K 1%. Quantify the flowering stage in days after sowing.

13. Arrange your introduction section in systematic scientific way and identify the study gap and provide a robust hypothesis. Try to avoid stating general information and be specific. Provide some concrete examples of actual yield loss in studied crop due to climatic extremes and how would the bio-regulators will help out. Provide the mechanistic overview of studied agents.

14. Follow journal’s guidelines for formatting of your manuscript

15. Add title of figures at Y-axis

16. Quantify the conclusion section

17. Add figures and tables in text at specific place instead of at the end of manuscript

18. Use journal’s guidelines for the format of references within text and at the end.

Reviewer #2: Comments

Title: Title may be simplified and result oriented.

Abstract

Hypothesis is not clear?

Keywords: Keywords are not appropriate. Keywords should be words not contained in the title or in the abstract. Their usefulness is to make easier the searching of the article using the common scientific search engines. Since several keywords are already present in the title, and/or repeated several times in the abstract, I strongly advise the authors to replace some of them and add more.

Introduction

Improve the introduction section with citation of recent studies. Reference too old. Use similarly terminology throughout the manuscript.

Material and Methods

Data collection and analysis are missing. Which leaf/leaves were collected, from top or bottom or middle. What was the procedure. Vegetative stage starts from emergence to flowering. Please mention the number of days after sowing for data collection.

Result and Discussion

There is much repetition in the results. Make it very brief because similar trend is observed throughout the outcomes of experimentation. Improve the discussion with latest references. Very poor discussion. No recent studies included. Just result interpretation. No scientific logic and physiological mechanism or phenomenon is presented. Discussion is just matching of results with some other researchers. Added references are too old. Improve the discussion with scientific reasoning of recent references. Each parameter should be addressed in discussion.

Conclusion

Conclusion must be short, specific and quantified.

Reference

Cross match the references from list and citation in text, also format the references according to journal style.

In the manuscript, there are many typo and grammar mistakes. Manuscript must be read very carefully to improve the quality of write up. Cross match the figures and tables as well.

If abbreviated, then must use abbreviation throughout the manuscript.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Mehmood Ali Noor

Reviewer #2: No

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Foliar Application of Potassium and Moringa Leaf Extract Improves Growth, Physiology and Productivity of Kabuli Chickpea Grown under Varying Sowing Regimes

PONE-D-21-37368R1

Dear Dr. Irshad,

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.

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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,

Adnan Noor Shah, PhD

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: Authors have addressed all the suggested comments and now the manuscript can be considered for publication.

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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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