Development of on-farm AMF inoculum production for sustainable agriculture in Senegal

Christian Valentin Nadieline; Antoine le Quéré; Cheikh Ndiaye; Amadou Abib Diène; Francis Do Rego; Oumar Sadio; Yoro Idrissa Thioye; Marc Neyra; Cheikh Mouhamed Fadel Kébé; Tatiana Krasova Wade

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0310065

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionApril 7, 2024
21 May 2024 Decision Letter - Sofia Isabel Almeida Pereira, Editor PONE-D-24-13955Development of on-farm AMF inoculum production for sustainable agriculture in SenegalPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Krasova Wade, 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 Jul 05 2024 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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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. We note that the grant information you provided in the ‘Funding Information’ and ‘Financial Disclosure’ sections do not match. When you resubmit, please ensure that you provide the correct grant numbers for the awards you received for your study in the ‘Funding Information’ section. 3. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure: [OAPI funding 27714 and IRD funding MySen]. Please state what role the funders took in the study. If the funders had no role, please state: ""The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."" If this statement is not correct you must amend it as needed. Please include this amended Role of Funder statement in your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. 4. Thank you for stating the following in the Acknowledgments Section of your manuscript: [This work was supported by the African Intellectual Property Organization (OAPI) funding 27714 and the Senegalese Innovative Business Incubator (INNODEV) between 2013 and 2016, and by the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD) funding MySen between 2017 and 2019. The authors thank the management of the Joint Microbiology Laboratory IRD-ISRA-UCAD (LCM) for supporting and the authorities of the commune of Darou Mousty and the farmers for the facilities granted to this work.] We note that you have provided funding information that is not currently declared in your Funding Statement. However, funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form. Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Currently, your Funding Statement reads as follows: [OAPI funding 27714 and IRD funding MySen] Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. 5. We note that your Data Availability Statement is currently as follows: [All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files] Please confirm at this time whether or not your submission contains all raw data required to replicate the results of your study. Authors must share the “minimal data set” for their submission. 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If there are ethical or legal restrictions on sharing a de-identified data set, please explain them in detail (e.g., data contain potentially sensitive information, data are owned by a third-party organization, etc.) and who has imposed them (e.g., an ethics committee). Please also provide contact information for a data access committee, ethics committee, or other institutional body to which data requests may be sent. If data are owned by a third party, please indicate how others may request data access. 6. We note that you have included the phrase “data not shown” in your manuscript. Unfortunately, this does not meet our data sharing requirements. PLOS does not permit references to inaccessible data. We require that authors provide all relevant data within the paper, Supporting Information files, or in an acceptable, public repository. Please add a citation to support this phrase or upload the data that corresponds with these findings to a stable repository (such as Figshare or Dryad) and provide and URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers that may be used to access these data. Or, if the data are not a core part of the research being presented in your study, we ask that you remove the phrase that refers to these data. [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: Partly Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: I Don't Know Reviewer #2: I Don't Know Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 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 Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 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 Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 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: Thank you for the opportunity to review for the esteemed journal, PLOS ONE. Regarding the manuscript, I regret to say that it may not align with the interests of your journal's readership. Major revisions are necessary before considering it for publication in the PLOS ONE. Nonetheless, I recommend the authors to undertake substantial revisions to improve the manuscript. It is advisable to include some information about materials and methods in the abstract. The referencing style should adhere to the journal's guidelines. The abstract is not presented in a manner that the readers understand the main results of this study. The Materials and Methods section requires additional details about experimental conditions. There is a lack of comprehensive description regarding experimental design, materials, and methods. Please explicitly state whether the objectives are novel. The below updated references would be useful: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-443-15884-1.00002-6 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indcrop.2022.115557 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eja.2021.126283 https://doi.org/10.1111/jam.15326 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indcrop.2016.06.024 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eja.2016.01.006 The introduction lacks coherence, with some sentences appearing conceptually disconnected, particularly towards the conclusion. Given the significance of the study, more attention should be devoted to refining the introduction. Clear articulation of hypotheses and objectives is essential. The Materials and Methods section necessitates restructuring for clarity, as some paragraphs are poorly organized, leading to confusion. Insufficient presentation, especially in terms of mean comparison, and inadequate description of results are evident. Additionally, there is an overabundance of poorly annotated illustrations and tables. It is challenging to discern how conclusions were derived from the illustrations in some instances, while other effects were not adequately presented. The discussion lacks depth, primarily consisting of a list of references for each measured variable. There is a notable absence of analysis on experimental processes and practical implications. The discussion fails to contextualize the experimental findings or justify the necessity of the study compared to existing literature. The discussion lacks integration among different variables measured in the experiment, failing to draw simultaneous conclusions from their measurements. Reviewer #2: Abstract - Lion 41-42: I think this information is inaccurate. There is a lot of research conducted in African countries in this regard, and commercial biofertilizer compounds contain mycorrhizal fungi for use in agricultural fields. Introduction - Although the introduction section is large, it does not contain specific information about the study factors - Most of the introduction is general talk that needs to be shortened - The introduction needs to be strengthened with previous studies that address the study factors Reviewer #3: Manuscript ID: PONE-D-24-13955 Development of on-farm AMF inoculum production for sustainable agriculture in Senegal Dear editor, The paper is original. The topic is interesting and may have application potential. The authors aim to investigate the feasibility of producing mycorrhizal inoculum on a semi-industrial farm scale. Agricultural residues were tested as replacements of sand. In the other experiments they have tested the effects of salinity water and soil sterilization on AMF prolifiration and production. The experiments are well designed and the data are more or less enough to interpret the results. The text is written relatively well. The results were relatively well-presented and discussed but I have some more concerns as they have been mentioned in the pdf file as note which has been attched. ****** 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 Reviewer #3: 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-24-13955_review.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0310065.r001
Revision 1
2 Jul 2024 Author Response Dear Editor, The Authors would like to thank the editorial team as well as reviewers for their careful and constructive comments. We have been through Journal Requirements and Reviewers concerns and made revisions accordingly. The revised manuscript submitted integrates all changes made and we have responded to each point below using green font to facilitate the reading. 1. When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 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.pd f. Response to Editor point 1: The manuscript has been reviewed and formatted following PLOS ONE’s requirements. 2. We note that the grant information you provided in the ‘Funding Information’ and ‘Financial Disclosure’ sections do not match. When you resubmit, please ensure that you provide the correct grant numbers for the awards you received for your study in the ‘Funding Information’ section. 3. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure: [OAPI funding 27714 and IRD funding MySen]. Please state what role the funders took in the study. If the funders had no role, please state: ""The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."" If this statement is not correct you must amend it as needed. Please include this amended Role of Funder statement in your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. 4. Thank you for stating the following in the Acknowledgments Section of your manuscript: [This work was supported by the African Intellectual Property Organization (OAPI) funding 27714 and the Senegalese Innovative Business Incubator (INNODEV) between 2013 and 2016, and by the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD) funding MySen between 2017 and 2019. The authors thank the management of the Joint Microbiology Laboratory IRD-ISRA-UCAD (LCM) for supporting and the authorities of the commune of Darou Mousty and the farmers for the facilities granted to this work.] We note that you have provided funding information that is not currently declared in your Funding Statement. However, funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form. Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Currently, your Funding Statement reads as follows: [OAPI funding 27714 and IRD funding MySen] Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. Thank for these clarifications, regarding points 2, 3 and 4, we have now removed any funding related text from the manuscript and sections “Funding information” and “Financial Disclosure” have been corrected and submitted online as follow: Funding information: “This work was supported by the African Intellectual Property Organization (OAPI) funding 27714 received in 2014 and by the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD) funding Coup de pouce “MySen” received in 2017. Financial Disclosure: “The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.” 5. We note that your Data Availability Statement is currently as follows: [All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files] Please confirm at this time whether or not your submission contains all raw data required to replicate the results of your study. Authors must share the “minimal data set” for their submission. PLOS defines the minimal data set to consist of the data required to replicate all study findings reported in the article, as well as related metadata and methods (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-minimal-data-set- definition). For example, authors should submit the following data: - The values behind the means, standard deviations and other measures reported; - The values used to build graphs; - The points extracted from images for analysis. Authors do not need to submit their entire data set if only a portion of the data was used in the reported study. If your submission does not contain these data, please either upload them as Supporting Information files or deposit them to a stable, public repository and provide us with the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers. For a list of recommended repositories, please see https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/recommended-repositories. If there are ethical or legal restrictions on sharing a de-identified data set, please explain them in detail (e.g., data contain potentially sensitive information, data are owned by a third-party organization, etc.) and who has imposed them (e.g., an ethics committee). Please also provide contact information for a data access committee, ethics committee, or other institutional body to which data requests may be sent. If data are owned by a third party, please indicate how others may request data access. Response to Editor point 5: please accept our apologies for not including these data in the first version of the manuscript. We have now included as Supporting information all raw data obtained as new dataset files for each one of the tables and figures presented in this work. Supporting information related to raw data linked to the submitted work: S1 dataset: raw data refereeing to Table 1 “Mycorrhization parameters (mean data) of AMF starters used for inoculum production on the pilot site” S2 dataset: raw data refereeing to Table 2 “Characteristics of the inoculum produced on agricultural residues alone or mixed with sand in Leonard jars” S3 dataset: raw data refereeing to Table 3 “Characteristics of the inoculum produced on agricultural residues in pots” S4 dataset: raw data refereeing to Table 4 “Characteristics of the inoculum produced on the peanut shell at the pilot site” S2 and S3 Fig dataset: raw data refereeing to Fig 2 “Box plot showing the effect of using salt water and substrate sterilization on inoculum quality“ and Fig 3 “Principal Component Analysis showing the effects of the treatments on the mycorhization using as variables the number of spores, mycorrhization intensity and frequency“ . S4 Fig dataset: raw data refereeing to Fig 4 “Mean number of spores obtained by classical and improved extraction methods when using peanut shells as growth substrate“ . 6. We note that you have included the phrase “data not shown” in your manuscript. Unfortunately, this does not meet our data sharing requirements. PLOS does not permit references to inaccessible data. We require that authors provide all relevant data within the paper, Supporting Information files, or in an acceptable, public repository. Please add a citation to support this phrase or upload the data that corresponds with these findings to a stable repository (such as Figshare or Dryad) and provide and URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers that may be used to access these data. Or, if the data are not a core part of the research being presented in your study, we ask that you remove the phrase that refers to these data. Response to Editor point 6: we have removed this part of the sentence as it is not dispensable and was not appropriate as sand sterilization was not used in the present study. The new sentence is now:” The shells were moistened with tap water and sterilized by cooking for 30 minutes in metal barrels heated with firewood by monitoring the cooking and avoiding burning (S1 Fig.). 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: Thank you for the opportunity to review for the esteemed journal, PLOS ONE. Regarding the manuscript, I regret to say that it may not align with the interests of your journal's readership. Major revisions are necessary before considering it for publication in the PLOS ONE. Nonetheless, I recommend the authors to undertake substantial revisions to improve the manuscript. We thank Reviewer 1 for his recommendations. We believe that the proposed study involving multiple actors is of wide interest and fits to PLOS ONE aims. We have modified the text so as to clarify all sections as recommended by reviewer 1, please see below for point by point responses to reviewer 1 comments and associated revisions made in the main text. It is advisable to include some information about materials and methods in the abstract. > Additional information about materials and methods has been included in the abstract. The referencing style should adhere to the journal's guidelines. >The referencing style has been revised. The abstract is not presented in a manner that the readers understand the main results of this study. > We have added the following text in the Abstract section regarding materials and methods: “Peanut shell, rice husk, sugar cane bagasse and millet ears were tested in Leonard jars and pots as alternatives to conventional sand production substrate for the multiplication of mycorrhizal fungi Glomus aggregatum IR27, Funneliformis mosseae, Rhizophagus irregulares and Glomus fasciculatum R10.” and main results of the study: “Significant results were obtained on the peanut shell. Under mass production conditions in farm scale, Glomus aggregatum IR27 showed the best mycorization characteristics with 19.76% intensity and 88.93% frequencies. The study highlighted the critical considerations of irrigation water salt content and substrate sterilization as essential parameters to ensure optimal development of mycorrhizal propagules. Water containing 0.5% salt inhibited the mycorrhization. This negative effect of salt was much more accentuated in unsterilized peanut shell substrate than in sterilized one” The Materials and Methods section requires additional details about experimental conditions. There is a lack of comprehensive description regarding experimental design, materials, and methods. > Details about materials and methods for the production of in farm AMF production have been described as a new figure as supporting information (please see Fig 1). Please explicitly state whether the objectives are novel. > We have emphasized the novelty of the objectives to produce on farm AMF by producers using “crop residues…” in the Introduction: “This experimental enterprise constitutes a pioneering initiative, potentially replicable in other agricultural areas. Its sustainability relies on the integration of renewable agricultural residues into the mycorrhizal inoculum production path in order to ensure the availability of the product on a large scale.” The below updated references would be useful: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-443-15884-1.00002-6 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indcrop.2022.115557 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eja.2021.126283 https://doi.org/10.1111/jam.15326 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indcrop.2016.06.024 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eja.2016.01.006 > We have decided to include three references (Seyyed Ali Sadegh Sadat Darakeh et al., 2022, Weria Weisany, 2021 and Loftabadi et al., 2022) that we think will improve the manuscript; we do not think that the other proposed references are essential for the comprehension of the article. The introduction lacks coherence, with some sentences appearing conceptually disconnected, particularly towards the conclusion. Given the significance of the study, more attention should be devoted to refining the introduction. Clear articulation of hypotheses and objectives is essential. > We have revised the introduction, the conclusion connects well with the objectives now. “This study endeavors to explore the feasibility of producing elite AMF inoculum on a semi-industrial scale within agricultural production sites. The simplicity and efficiency of the technology lays the foundations for the creation of a local sector for the production and distribution of inoculum of endomycorrhizal fungi in Senegal. Ultimately, it contributes to stimulate the integration of symbiotic microorganisms into agricultural practices in the form of bio-stimulants.” The Materials and Methods section necessitates restructuring for clarity, as some paragraphs are poorly organized, leading to confusion. > Details about materials and methods for the production of in farm AMF production have been described as a new figure as supporting information (please see S1 Fig). Insufficient presentation, especially in terms of mean comparison, and inadequate description of results are evident. Additionally, there is an overabundance of poorly annotated illustrations and tables. > The tables have been transferred to the supporting information and the details have been provided in terms of mean comparison. Additional data was provided in the supporting information. It is challenging to discern how conclusions were derived from the illustrations in some instances, while other effects were not adequately presented. >The conclusion section has been revised and more focused on the present study. The prospects for increasing of AMF production units have been identified. The discussion lacks depth, primarily consisting of a list of references for each measured variable. There is a notable absence of analysis on experimental processes and practical implications. The discussion fails to contextualize the experimental findings or justify the necessity of the study compared to existing literature. >The Discussion section has been revised and was more contextualized. The effort was made to reconcile the results obtained with data from the literature. The connection was made with the objectives. The discussion lacks integration among different variables measured in the experiment, failing to draw simultaneous conclusions from their measurements. > We have taken these suggestions into account and revised all discussion section. Reviewer #2: Abstract - Lion 41-42: I think this information is inaccurate. There is a lot of research conducted in African countries in this regard, and commercial biofertilizer compounds contain mycorrhizal fungi for use in agricultural fields. > We are observed that industrial inoculum production in Africa is limited to a few countries. Commercial products do not often contain native strains adapted to all environments. They are not accessible to farmers. This study aims to develop a simple protocol for producing quality inoculum whose know-how can be easily transferred to farmers to ensure their autonomy. Introduction - Although the introduction section is large, it does not contain specific information about the study factors - Most of the introduction is general talk that needs to be shortened - The introduction needs to be strengthened with previous studies that address the study factors > The Introduction section has been improved: shortened, enriched with bibliographic data and focused on the objectives and originality: “This experimental enterprise constitutes a pioneering initiative, potentially replicable in other agricultural areas. Its sustainability relies on the integration of renewable agricultural residues into the mycorrhizal inoculum production path in order to ensure the availability of the product on a large scale. This study endeavors to explore the feasibility of producing elite AMF inoculum on a semi-industrial scale within agricultural production sites. The simplicity and efficiency of the technology lays the foundations for the creation of a local sector for the production and distribution of inoculum of endomycorrhizal fungi in Senegal. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Responses to Reviewers.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0310065.r002
24 Jul 2024 Decision Letter - Sofia Isabel Almeida Pereira, Editor PONE-D-24-13955R1Development of on-farm AMF inoculum production for sustainable agriculture in SenegalPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Krasova Wade, 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 Sep 07 2024 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: https://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, Sofia Isabel Almeida Pereira 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. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] 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 ******** 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: (No Response) Reviewer #2: (No Response) ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: (No Response) Reviewer #2: (No Response) ****** 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: (No Response) Reviewer #2: (No Response) ****** 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: (No Response) Reviewer #2: (No Response) ****** 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 revised the entire manuscript according to the recommendations of the reviewers and the editor. It has been significantly improved, and the discussion is now sufficiently critical and can therefore be considered for acceptance Reviewer #2: The introduction has been greatly shortened. Please add some research to the introduction that highlight the importance of mycorrhiza on plant production, especially in arid and semi-arid regions such as Africa. For example: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rhisph.2024.100852 ****** 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 ******** [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. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0310065.r003
Revision 2
7 Aug 2024 Author Response Dear Editor, The Authors would like to thank the editorial team as well as reviewers for their constructive comments. We have made revisions accordingly the reviewers’ comments. The revised manuscript submitted integrates all changes made and we have responded to each point below using green font to facilitate the reading. 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. >The reference list has been revised. No reference has been retracted. Four new references were cited as below. Review Comments to the Author 6. Review Comments to the Author Reviewer #1: The authors revised the entire manuscript according to the recommendations of the reviewers and the editor. It has been significantly improved, and the discussion is now sufficiently critical and can therefore be considered for acceptance. >We thank Reviewer 1 for his positive appreciations. Reviewer #2: The introduction has been greatly shortened. Please add some research to the introduction that highlight the importance of mycorrhiza on plant production, especially in arid and semi-arid regions such as Africa. For example: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rhisph.2024.100852 >We thank Reviewer 2 for his positive appreciations. Additional researches have been mentioned in the introduction that we think will improve the manuscript; “Additionally, it was demonstrated across diverse agro-ecological zones adaptability to saline and water stress conditions [19] and improving of plant production in arid and semi-arid zones [20, 21, 22, 23]” The references’ list has been updated: 20. Shalaby OA, Ramadan MEl-SR. Mycorrhizal colonization and calcium spraying modulate physiological and antioxidant responses to improve pepper growth and yield under salinity stress. Rhizosphere. 2024;29,100852. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rhisph.2024.100852. 21. Ould Amer S, Aliat T, Kucher DE, Bensaci OA, Rebouh NY. Investigating the potential of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in mitigating water deficit effects on durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf.). Agriculture. 2023;13(3):552-68. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture13030552. 22. Duan H-X, Luo C-L, Li J-Y, Wang B-Z, Naseer M, Xiong Y-C. Improvement of wheat productivity and soil quality by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi is density- and moisture-dependent. Agron Sustain Develop. 2021;41:3-12. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-020-00659-8. 23. Wahab A, Muhammad M, Munir A, Abdi G, Zaman W, Ayaz A et al. Role of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in regulating growth, enhancing productivity, and potentially influencing ecosystems under abiotic and biotic Stresses. Plants. 2023;12:3102-40. https://doi.org/10.3390/plants12173102. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Responses to Reviewers.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0310065.r004
21 Aug 2024 Decision Letter - Sofia Isabel Almeida Pereira, Editor Development of on-farm AMF inoculum production for sustainable agriculture in Senegal PONE-D-24-13955R2 Dear Dr. Wade, 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 will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager® and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. If you have any questions relating to publication charges, 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, Sofia Isabel Almeida Pereira Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0310065.r005
Formally Accepted
4 Sep 2024 Acceptance Letter - Sofia Isabel Almeida Pereira, Editor PONE-D-24-13955R2 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Krasova Wade, I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now being handed over to our production team. At this stage, our production department will prepare your paper for publication. This includes ensuring the following: * All references, tables, and figures are properly cited * All relevant supporting information is included in the manuscript submission, * There are no issues that prevent the paper from being properly typeset If revisions are needed, the production department will contact you directly to resolve them. If no revisions are needed, you will receive an email when the publication date has been set. At this time, we do not offer pre-publication proofs to authors during production of the accepted work. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few weeks to review your paper and let you know the next and final steps. Lastly, 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 customercare@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 Dr. Sofia Isabel Almeida Pereira Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0310065.r006

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