Response of Milling and Appearance Quality of Rice with Good Eating Quality to Temperature and Solar Radiation in Lower Reaches of Huai River
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Review - Manuscript ID: Agriculture-1051012
“Response of Milling and Appearance Quality of Rice with Good Eating Quality to Temperature and Solar Radiation in Lower Reaches of Huai River”
General remarks
The work presented addresses an interesting and topical subject considering climate change and/or environmental constraints. However, this study which aims to measure the effect of temperature and radiation on the quality of rice, remains far too general. In fact, despite a certain number of interesting results, the authors give very little room to real scientific hypotheses (i.e. based on physiological mechanisms).
Minor remarks
Table 4 (page 9) and Figures 4 and 5 (page 10): In figure 4(a), the correlation values displayed (i.e. r = 0.961 and r = 0.979) do not strictly correspond to the values displayed in table 4 for the same variables studied. It is the same for figure 5(a) (i.e. r = 0.691 for 2017). Thanks to the authors for correcting. At the same time, can the authors explain what the horizontal dotted lines in Figures 3, 4, 5 and 6 correspond to?
Tables 5 and 6 (page 11): In the captions of these two tables, the authors perfectly define the terms “GBM I”, “GBM II”, “GBA II” and “GBA III”. On the other hand, within the same tables, the reader would like to know what precisely covers the name "Relatively high-yield"?
References: There are changes that need to be made text in accordance with editorial rules: in particular the format of abbreviations of journal names.
Major remarks
Lines 28-58: The introduction of this paper needs to be improved. Indeed, it remains very general by not allowing the reader to make a bibliographical point in matter of influence of the temperature and solar radiation on grain yield and quality in rice grain.
Lines 90-100: Even if methodology of rice quality analysis is referenced (line 92), it would have been judicious to develop this qualitative evaluation to a minimum given the importance it represents for this work.
Table 2 (Line 190): This table presents differences in milling quality of rice under different temperature and solar radiation conditions. Even if this table is very complete, it does not allow the reader to have a synthetic idea of the relative importance of the different sources of variation of milling quality: please include the results of the ANOVA, thus allowing the reader to get a precise idea of the different variances observed (Year, Sowing date, Variety, YxS, YxV and SxV) apart from the simple precision of their level of statistical significance. At the same time, how can the authors explain that the YxS interaction is not significant here?
Table 3 (Line 203): The same remark as above can be made regarding the details of the ANOVA.
Lines 320-324: The hypotheses formulated by the authors in this paragraph deserve to be clarified by mechanistic explanations?
Lines 339-341: The same remark as above can be made regarding the probable effects of high temperature during grain filling and structure/properties of starch granules. Likewise, it is very difficult for the reader to understand how the authors arrive at the following hypothesis (lines 344-345: “the too low temperature hindered the division of endosperm cells and reduces the volume of amyloplasts”) from their results?
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
In my opinion the article is very interesting and the novelty is high. Moreover, the experimental is well conducted. The article might be of technical and practical interest to many readers of this journal (mainly agronomist and food technologists). For these reasons, I believe that this paper could be accepted for publication, but only after Minor Revisions.
Here following the corrections that need to be made:
Title
Ok
Abstract:
Line 13: replace “study to reveal” with “evaluated to find optimal temperature”…
Line 13-14: “replace “good” with “optimize”
line 22: replace comma with full stop (paddy. The mean..)
Introduction:
Line 33-34: I definitely agree with you, but you need to cite references here to support your statement. Moreover, your refences list is definitely too short. I strongly suggest you to add these two papers here to support your statement:
…through cultivation measures [2, 3]
Please add these papers to the references list and scale of two positions the earlier references:
[2] Guerrini, L., Napoli, M., Mancini, M., Masella, P., Cappelli, A., Parenti, A., & Orlandini, S. (2020). Wheat grain composition, dough rheology and bread quality as affected by nitrogen and sulfur fertilization and seeding density. Agronomy, 10(2), 233.
[3] Cappelli, A., Oliva, N., Cini, E. (2020). A Systematic Review of Gluten-Free Dough and Bread: Dough Rheology, Bread Characteristics, and Improvement Strategies. Applied Sciences, 10(18), 6559.
Line 40: this introduction is too short and you didn’t explain here why you assessed the milling appearance. I ‘m sure that you assessed it because the milling process is the one which generates the most significant effect on the final product quality (even higher than kneading and baking in the case of bread and bakery products made from rice and wheat).
So I STRONGLY suggest you to add this couple of sentences, and the suggested refences, to highlight the importance of milling and its significant effects on final product quality. So please add this text in line 40 after “evaluating rice quality [6,7 that became 8,9].”
“evaluating rice quality [8, 9]. The milling appearance is an essential parameter of the final quality of rice, wheat, and other cereals final products, since that the milling process is able to generates the greatest and deepest changes in the final products quality [10, 11, 12], even higher than other essential processes like kneading and baking [13, 14]
Please add these papers to the references list and scale up the earlier refences:
[10] Cappelli, A., Mugnaini, M., Cini, E. (2020) Improving roller milling technology using the break, sizing, and reduction systems for flour differentiation. LWT–Food Science and Technology, 133, 110067.
[11] Cappelli, A., Oliva, N., & Cini, E. (2020). Stone milling versus roller milling: A systematic review of the effects on wheat flour quality, dough rheology, and bread characteristics. Trends in Food Science & Technology, 97, 147-155.
[12] Cappelli, A., Guerrini, L., Parenti, A., Palladino, G., & Cini, E. (2020). Effects of wheat tempering and stone rotational speed on particle size, dough rheology and bread characteristics for a stone-milled weak flour. Journal of Cereal Science, 91, 102879.
[13] Cappelli, A., Canessa, J., & Cini, E. (2020). Effects of CO2 snow addition during kneading on thermoregulation, dough rheological properties, and bread characteristics: a focus on ancient and modern wheat cultivars. International Journal of Refrigeration, 117, 52–60.
[14] Cappelli, A., Bettaccini, L., & Cini, E. (2020). The kneading process: A systematic review of the effects on dough rheology and resulting bread characteristics, including improvement strategies. Trends in Food Science & Technology, 104, 91–101.
Line 45: ….environment has been also attributed to ….
Line 48: remove “to form good milling and appearance quality”. Is a not necessary repetition.
Line 53: raw material
Materials and methods:
Line 79 -80 : …as they are currently the most widely cultivated in the lower reaches of Huai River.
Line 88-89: to avoid losses in rice quality and yield.
Line 124: replace by with using
Results:
Line 180: showed a deterioration trend.
Line 300: replace the date that with - It is important to highlight that
Discussion:
Line 319: replace we speculate with we believe that..
Line 320-324 : I definitely agree.
Line 339: lead to lower starch compactness and to irregular arrangement of starch granules, …
Line 342: we believe that.
Line 344: remove the
Conclusions:
This sections is definitely too short . please add some sentences regarding annual temperature variability, the difficulties to find every year the same temperature during the same sowing days, and the future prospects of your research
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
