Assessment of the Effects of Genotype, Location, and Planting Season on the Nutritional Composition and the Metabolizable Energy of Advanced Twenty-Five Maize Hybrids

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I have evaluated this manuscript resubmitted for publication in ‘Agriculture’ once again. The Authors have improved the text of manuscript according to my suggestions but still I suggest recalculating the content of components in to g kg^-1 DM. Authors have changed % DM on g/100 g DM but it is not correct (see SI units). 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

I have evaluated this manuscript (ijpb-1859917) entitled “Assessment of the effects of genotype, location, and planting season on the nutritional composition of advanced twenty-five hybrid maize genotypes” submitted for publication in ‘IJPB’. This manuscript is the revised draft of manuscript agriculture-1744719) that was submitted for publication in 'Agriculture'.  The authors incorporated some general comments but the major drawbacks are still not answered. 

I mentioned serious concerns regarding "Materials and Methods section" that it was very poorly written and much important information was missing. Maize was grown on five locations but details of husbandry practices used to raise crop are totally missing. Information about experimental sites is not given. Pre-sowing soil fertility status of all locations is very much important to describe the results obtained. Likewise, I have mentioned that years/seasons had significant effect but climatic data to explain this effect is not given.

In response the authors just mentioned some general information in introduction section and still all necessary details are missing. Likewise, I mentioned serious concerns regarding experiment conducted. The authors raise 26 genotypes at five locations for two seasons. The authors mentioned total number of samples 260 (26 ×5 ×2). It means the experiment was conducted without any biological replication, so results are not acceptable. I am confused how the authors calculated standard deviation as there was no replication used during experimentation.

In response the authors replied that they recorded standard deviation from lab replication. How is it possible and justified.

5similarly I have mentioned that interactive effect of locations and seasons was significant, an important finding of study; but the authors ignored it totally in results as we as discussion section.

The authors failed to fulfil this comment as well.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The comment is attached.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Reviewer 4 Report

Title

The title needs to be aligned with the goals. You should add metabolizable energy in the title. My suggestion for the title is “Assessment of the effects of genotype, location, and planting season on the nutritional composition and the metabolizable energy of advanced twenty-five maize genotypes”.

You must unify the term a genotype or a hybrid through the text. It is not the same; a genotype is a broader term than a hybrid. It cannot stand, for example, “hybrid maize genotypes”. Are all your samples hybrids, or are they genotypes? 

 Abstract

In the abstract and keywords, you should add “composition” with “proximate”.  It does not mean anything just “proximate”. “Proximate composition” is adequate. Please, delete total carbohydrates in the third sentence due to it is nutritional composition. 

 Introduction

The introduction is quite extensive. It should be shortened and adapted to the research subject.

 Materials and Methods

The description of each chemical method (dry matter, ash, fat, protein) in detail is not necessary; you should only give the references for each quality parameter.  

It should be emphasized which metabolizable energy is the subject of your paper.

 Conclusion

In conclusion, please, better emphasize the importance of the results and its practical application. Please, clarify the last sentence, what quality of food do you mean?  

 English

English has to be improved. Many sentences have poor constructions, grammar and inappropriate words. Please, correct the mentioned weaknesses through the all manuscript.

Author Response

We thank you for your remarks and comments on the manuscripts. We have painstakingly effected all your suggestions and remarks in the manuscripts with tracked changes and a clean version attached. Please find our cover note attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I have again evaluated the manuscript (ijpb-1859917) entitled “Assessment of the effects of genotype, location, and planting season on the nutritional composition of advanced twenty-five hybrid maize genotypes” submitted for publication in ‘IJPB’. This manuscript is the 2^nd revised draft of manuscript agriculture-1744719) that was submitted for publication in 'Agriculture'.  The authors incorporated some general comments but the major drawbacks are still not answered.

Although the authors added climatic data and some information of locations (still important information of locations and crop husbandry used at each location is missing). Still, I am not convinced with the revisions and author’s response.  

They have used only two replications (as they mentioned now in 3^rd revision) and each maize hybrid was grown just in one line of 5 m i.e., having ten plants only, which is a very small sample size.

Likewise, the authors mentioned that they have discussed the results according to locations and seasons in discussion section. I wonder how they claim that? They have just mentioned that environment, seasons/ locations had significant effect on quality traits of maize. It is totally unclear that which element of season or location is responsible for the recorded results. What was the possible mechanism behind? Just mentioning that these variations are due to season/ location is not justified and not a discussion at all. Moreover, logical explanation of obtained results is totally missing in discussion section. Authors have just compared maize with other cereals or range of quality traits. It is not clear why divergent hybrids behaved differently.

I again recommend ‘rejection’ of this manuscript. However, if the handing editor can find some potential then he can go forward. After that I am no more interested to review this particular manuscript.

Author Response

We thank you for your constructive review and valuable time to review our manuscripts. Our response is in the attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx