PONE-D-21-40678Senescence and lignin accumulation lead to hardening of snow pea during postharvest storagePLOS ONE

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: I Don't Know

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: In the manuscript PONE-D-21-40678, the authors investigated the senescence and lignin accumulation lead to hardening of snow pea during postharvest storage.

Overall, the methodology used by the authors about two varieties of snow pea and the targeted measurements are rather basic, and hence do not provide any additional information to what is already known about the biochemical changes in pea. There are a number of issues of concern and limited amount of new science in the manuscript. Authors are advised to find out more metabolites for comparison of the two varieties of snow pea, as the quality related measurements are very basic. Cell wall degrading enzymes, browning indexes and cell damage indexes would support more precisely the story.

Taking all the factors into account, I believe the manuscript is not suitable for publication in its present state in Journal of Plos One.

Some specific comments are given below:

Title: The title not complete reflects the content of the manuscript.

Line No. 66-75: In the present study, the changes in metabolic rate and nutrient contents were investigated to reveal deterioration mechanism in super snap peas after harvest. The targeted pea is not super snap peas in this study. The aim of this study is very general. In the introduction, no needs to write the results of this study.

Line No. 89-90: First, samples were respectively put into the respiratory chamber, after standing for 0.5 h. What did the authors mean by 0.5h?

Line No. 145-148: Pease, write the experimental design used in this study.

Line No. 155-159: As shown in Fig 1A, the respiration rate was dramatically increased by 55.38% (from 66.54 to 103.39 mg•kg-1•h-1) for large sweet broad pea and by 139.75% (from 30.77 to 73.77 mg•kg-1•h-1) for small snow peas after 8-day storage, respectively. This indicated that the respiration rate of the small snow peas was stronger. There is contradiction in you results and Fig. 1A. The Fig. 1A, indicates that the respiration rate was higher in Large sweet broad peas as compared to Small snow peas. However, the authors claimed in the results that the respiration rate was higher in Small snow peas. If the respiration rate was higher in the Large sweet broad peas as indicted in the Fig. 1A, then how the authors concluded that the shelf life of Large sweet broad was longer compared to Small snow peas?

The authors stated simple concepts and common knowledge over and over again. The results should be properly discussed in view of literature data.

Fig. 1, 2 and 3 should be constructed like Fig. 4.

Please, improve the conclusion by adding some salient and new findings of the present study.

Reviewer #2: The manuscript no PONE-D-21-40678 entitled 'Senescence and lignin accumulation lead to hardening of snow pea during postharvest storage' addressed nutritional, organoleptic and lignification changes in two varieties of snow pea after harvest. The study was very interesting and of economic importance for stakeholders, retailers, processors and exporters of pea industry. However, the manuscript needs some minor revisions in methodology section and overall the manuscript should be checked for grammatically mistakes and language improvement. I have suggested some changes in the manuscript pasted in 'Reviewer attachment'. After incorporation of these changes the manuscript can be considered for publication.

Reviewer #3: Research presented in the manuscript investigates changes in respiration, water loss, membrane permeability, nutrient contents, lignin contents, cellulose contents, and textural attributes in two snow pea varieties during storage. Findings suggest that lignin accumulation leads to hardening of snow pea during postharvest storage. Though, data presented provide adequate evidence to support the claim, however, few basic elements of research are missing and must be included in the manuscript. Storage conditions, replication size (sample weight), number of replications allocated to each removal and experimental design are missing in the "Materials and Methods" section. Figure captions must also state description of standard error bars used in graphs? Overall, manuscript is written well and needs only few corrections highlighted in the reviewed version of manuscript.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Ghulam Khaliq

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-21-40678.pdf

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-21-40678_reviewer.pdf

Comparison of storage and lignin accumulation characteristics between two types of snow pea

PONE-D-21-40678R1

Dear Dr. Li,

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,

Sajid Ali

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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