Hermetia illucens frass improves the physiological state of basil (Ocimum basilicum L.) and its nutritional value under drought

Dominika Radzikowska-Kujawska; Zuzanna Sawinska; Monika Grzanka; Przemysław Łukasz Kowalczewski; Łukasz Sobiech; Stanisław Świtek; Grzegorz Skrzypczak; Agnieszka Drożdżyńska; Mariusz Ślachciński; Marcin Nowicki

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0280037

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionSeptember 2, 2022
27 Oct 2022 Decision Letter - Umakanta Sarker, Editor PONE-D-22-24561Hermetia illucens frass affects the physiological state of basil (Ocimum basilicum L.) and its nutritional value under droughtPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Nowicki, 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 Dec 11 2022 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. 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Reviewer #1: No ****** 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: Manuscript Title: Hermetia illucens frass affects the physiological state of basil (Ocimum basilicum L.) and its nutritional value under drought Comment: The work by Radzikowska et al. advances our understating the biological role for the frass fertilizer for increasing basil physiology and its nutritional status in the presence of insufficient water. The report is well and condensed, as well as technically may be appropriate for PLOS ONE. However, before being able to recommend acceptance, I invite authors to address the following amendments. 1. I made some corrections in the manuscript, please follow those. 2. Extensive editing of English language 3. Cite some references how frass improve plant physiologyand quality. 4. Cite some references how drought affects negatively on physiology and quality of Basil. 5. Materials and Methods should be clearer ****** 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 ******** [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". 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Revision 1
9 Nov 2022 Author Response Dear Dr. Umakanta Sarker, Thank you for your Editorial service towards the peer-review of our manuscript. The Authors are very grateful to the Reviewer for pointing out deficiencies to make this a stronger submission. We added the necessary information. We hope that the revised manuscript now meets the requirements for publication in PLoS One. Respectfully yours, Marcin Nowicki #Rewiever 1 Comment: The work by Radzikowska et al. advances our understating the biological role for the frass fertilizer for increasing basil physiology and its nutritional status in the presence of insufficient water. The report is well and condensed, as well as technically may be appropriate for PLOS ONE. However, before being able to recommend acceptance, I invite authors to address the following amendments. Response: Thank you for your helpful comments and suggestions for improvement; these made our report stronger. Comment: 1. I made some corrections in the manuscript, please follow those. Response: Thank you for your work. We genuinely appreciate it. Comment: 2. Extensive editing of English language Response: We carefully scanned and edited the Manuscript and accompanying files throughout, to the best of our collective command of English. We noted the often-missing spaces, likely introduced during the conversion to .pdf by the Submission system. We could not address the generic character of that comment without any specific passages needing “extensive editing” in the Reviewer’s opinion. Comment: 3. Cite some references how frass improve plant physiology and quality. Response: It has been added to the MS (69-80). “Use of Hermetia illucens frass (HI frass) as an additive to the growing media in the soilless production of basil, lettuce, and tomato increased the yield (drought mass) [12]. Also, the study of the compost produced as a result of the bioconversion of coffee husks by the larvae of the H. illucens in the cultivation of lettuce showed a positive effect of such fertilizers on plant height, number of leaves, leaf area, and chlorophyll content [13]. Recently published data indicate that the use of insect frass as a soil component in plant cultivation provides nitrogen and other nutrients, which consequently increases plant biomass and nutrient content [11,14]. Quality of the HI frass is high in terms of N, P, and K levels [15]. Use of HI frass from larvae increased the soil organic matter and the residual nutrients content, as well as the enzymatic activity of dehydrogenase and β-glucosidase [16]. Comment: 4. Cite some references how drought affects negatively on physiology and quality of Basil. Response: It has been added to the MS (99-111). “Basil is an annual plant that can be successfully grown in warm and sunny conditions [30]. The optimal growth temperature ranges from 298 to 303 K [31]. Basil, however, is quite sensitive to drought stress [32]. Drought stress triggers a number of various physiological responses that have negative effects on plant growth and development. Plants are adapted to the short-term effect of the stress factor, whereas under prolonged drought stress, the rate of water absorption from the leaves is increased, which consequently reduces their hydration. This can result in closure of the stomata and in reduced cell enlargement and growth [33]. In addition, drought also causes a reduction in the activity of the electron transport chain, which leads to the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) that are toxic at elevated levels [34]. ROS may damage nucleic acids, proteins, photosynthetic pigments, and membrane lipids [34,35], and that damage may impair plant development, yield, and even lead to plant death. Comment: 5. Materials and Methods should be clearer Response: The description of the methods is based on the literature data and manufacturers' recommendations. We agree with the Reviewer that it could be clearer as it is very detailed and extensive. But, with the reviewer's consent, we would like to leave that section as currently described. Our accurate descriptions of the analytical methods allow their independent reproduction. Comment: What was the water holding capacity of the experimental soil at 80% Field capcity and what was the soil pH? Response: Soil pH was 6.2; this information has been added to the text (124). The water capacity was of lesser import for us, because the only differing factor throughout the experiment was the fertilization regime. Please note, data for full parallel characteristics under control (non-stressed; regularly watered) and drought (stressed) conditions are presented; these were generated in the same soil throughout. Comment: ℃ Response: It means Celsius degree. It has been calculated to K, according to SI units. Comment: Where is figure? Response: The figure is attached as a separate file. It was successfully produced into the .pdf for us. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers[8665].docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280037.r002
20 Dec 2022 Decision Letter - Umakanta Sarker, Editor Hermetia illucens frass improves the physiological state of basil (Ocimum basilicum L.) and its nutritional value under drought PONE-D-22-24561R1 Dear Dr. Nowicki, 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, Umakanta Sarker 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 ******** 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 ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: 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 ****** 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 ****** 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: This is a good peace of work which will contribute to the future research works in this aspect. Author has responses all quarries properly. So the manuscript may be considered for publication. ****** 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 ******** https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280037.r003
Formally Accepted
23 Dec 2022 Acceptance Letter - Umakanta Sarker, Editor PONE-D-22-24561R1 Hermetia illucens frass improves the physiological state of basil (Ocimum basilicum L.) and its nutritional value under drought Dear Dr. Nowicki: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. 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. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Professor Umakanta Sarker Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280037.r004

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