Peer Review History

Original SubmissionOctober 11, 2024
Decision Letter - Mojtaba Kordrostami, Editor

PONE-D-24-45249Effects of Organic-inorganic Complex Fertilizer on the Growth and Physiological Characteristics of 'Qi-Nan' Agarwood from Aquilaria sinensis (Lour.)PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Penglian,

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 Jan 06 2025 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,

Mojtaba Kordrostami, 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. 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: 

“The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.”

At this time, please address the following queries:

a) Please clarify the sources of funding (financial or material support) for your study. List the grants or organizations that supported your study, including funding received from your institution. 

b) State what role the funders took in the study. If the funders had no role in your study, please state: “The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.”

c) If any authors received a salary from any of your funders, please state which authors and which funders.

d) If you did not receive any funding for this study, please state: “The authors received no specific funding for this work.”

Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf.

4. 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.

[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

Reviewer #3: No

**********

2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: No

**********

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: Yes

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: The manuscript gives a good impact on the effect of various organic and inorganic fertilizers on the valuable agarwood seedlings. Valuable data was collected and presented in tables and figures, however, it lacks some statistical significance tests. It is recommended to use and apply some statistical analysis to check the the difference between treatments. e.g.

Table 1 and Table 2 should be supported horizontally each row with one way ANOVA to check the difference between the treatment groups, and vertically with either repeated measure ANOVA and/or Pearson's correlation. the change in seedling height with time should be presented at least by (r) Pearson's correlation coefficient and two-tailed significance test. Moreover, the overall table could be tested with two way repeated measure ANOVA (Factor1= treatment, Factor2= Time)

In addition, some minor corrections in the manuscript, including punctuations and other typing errors, should be revised.

Figure 1. caption line 181, the word Treat. would be expressed as "treatment." would be better

The figure legend isnot clear; if possible, clarify.

Line 106 in the materials and Methods part, "The average seedling height was 17.60±0.33..." please clarify which was used with the average (±SD) or average (±SE)

Reviewer #2: YES, manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions. Additon the authors provide the findings in their manuscript. Author applied statistical analysis which parallel finding conclusion. More language uses is understandable to reader.

Reviewer #3: There are some concerns about present manuscript as follow: the aquired data is belonged to one year study and so is not statistically more reliable. Moreover, There is noy any other external factor which studied beside fertilizer tretment.

**********

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: Yes:  Abdelghafar M. Abu-Elsaoud

Reviewer #2: Yes:  ARIF ALI

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-24-45249_reviewer.pdf
Revision 1

Reviewer 1

1.The manuscript gives a good impact on the effect of various organic and inorganic fertilizers on the valuable agarwood seedlings. Valuable data was collected and presented in tables and figures, however, it lacks some statistical significance tests. It is recommended to use and apply some statistical analysis to check the the difference between treatments. e.g.Table 1 and Table 2 should be supported horizontally each row with one way ANOVA to check the difference between the treatment groups, and vertically with either repeated measure ANOVA and/or Pearson's correlation. the change in seedling height with time should be presented at least by (r) Pearson's correlation coefficient and two-tailed significance test. Moreover, the overall table could be tested with two way repeated measure ANOVA (Factor1= treatment, Factor2= Time)

Re: Thank you for your patience in reviewing the manuscript and for your valuable comments. According to what you said, we have applied some statistical analysis to check the differences between the treatments, and at the same time added multiple comparisons between the treatments and the main effect of the months on the growth amount of seedling height and ground diameter, so as to make the statistical analysis more suitable and strict. Thank you again for your valuable advice.

2.In addition, some minor corrections in the manuscript, including punctuations and other typing errors, should be revised.

RE: Thank you for raising our spelling and punctuation questions. We have reviewed the full text thoroughly and made changes.

3.Figure 1. caption line 181, the word Treat. would be expressed as "treatment." would be better.The figure legend isnot clear; if possible, clarify.

RE: Thank you very much for examining the manuscript and asking this question. We have changed the "Treat" in Figure 1 and Figure 2 to "treatment." At the same time, we have modified the expression of the legend to make it clearer. Thank you again for your valuable advice.

4.Line 106 in the materials and Methods part, "The average seedling height was 17.60±0.33..." please clarify which was used with the average (±SD) or average (±SE)

RE: Thank you for your careful examination of the manuscript.We have corrected the sentence to:The average seedling height was 17.60 ± 0.33 cm (average ± standard deviation) and the average ground diameter was 4.95 ± 0.29 mm (average ± standard deviation).

Reviewer 2

YES, manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions. Additon the authors provide the findings in their manuscript. Author applied statistical analysis which parallel finding conclusion. More language uses is understandable to reader.

RE: Thank you so much for sparing your precious time from your busy schedule to review and comment on our research. Your professional and meticulous review has made us recognize the value of the article and has given us greater confidence in our research direction. Your recognition is an immense encouragement to us, and we will hold onto this encouragement to keep moving forward on the academic path and continue conducting relevant research. Sincere thanks to you once again!

Reviewer 3

There are some concerns about present manuscript as follow: the aquired data is belonged to one year study and so is not statistically more reliable. Moreover, There is noy any other external factor which studied beside fertilizer tretment.

RE: Thank you for your careful examination of the manuscript.

The design of our trial cycle was founded on some comparable literature that has been reported, and the experimental outcomes demonstrated similar results or trends to them. For instance, some researchers selected leaves on the 67th day after fertilization for the determination of physiological indicators (Kuanysh K, Ji D D, Kuanysh K, Hui W B, Li M L. Effects of Five Foliar Fertilizers on the Growth and Physiological Characteristics of Dahongpao Prickly Ash. Journal of Northwest Forestry University.2022;37 (4).135-142. DOI:10.3969/j.issn.1001-7461.2022.04.18), and some others measured indicators on the 80th day after fertilization(HE Jinjin, DENG Tiantian, LIU Qianyu, et al. Effects of different fertilization treatments on growth and physiological characteristics of Ardisia japonica[J]. Ecological Science, 2023, 42(4): 92–97). This indicates that our results are also compelling. However, you mentioned that due to the short test duration, the obtained results have certain limitations and are insufficient to represent the long-term fertilization effect. In the future, the test period will be prolonged, and further research will be conducted to make the test results more practical.

Regarding other factors that were not considered, we mainly utilized the pot control experiment to explore the influence of fertilizer on its growth. Other factors could almost be disregarded in this experiment, and we will also carry out the relevant research you proposed in the subsequent experiment.

Thank you again for your advice and we will be more careful with our trial design in future studies.

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: Response to Reviews.docx
Decision Letter - Mojtaba Kordrostami, Editor

Effects of Organic-inorganic Complex Fertilizer  on the Growth and Physiological Characteristics of 'Qi-Nan' Agarwood from Aquilaria sinensis (Lour.)

PONE-D-24-45249R1

Dear Dr. Penglian,

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,

Mojtaba Kordrostami, Ph.D.

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 #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 #2: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

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 #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 #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 #2: All the above sections include the English language; statistically, literature is written clearly and correctly. I would recommend proceeding further.

**********

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 #2: No

**********

Formally Accepted
Acceptance Letter - Mojtaba Kordrostami, Editor

PONE-D-24-45249R1

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Penglian,

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. Mojtaba Kordrostami

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Open letter on the publication of peer review reports

PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process. Therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. Reviewers remain anonymous, unless they choose to reveal their names.

We encourage other journals to join us in this initiative. We hope that our action inspires the community, including researchers, research funders, and research institutions, to recognize the benefits of published peer review reports for all parts of the research system.

Learn more at ASAPbio .