Contribution of Awns to Seed Yield and Seed Shattering in Siberian Wildrye Grown under Irrigated and Rainfed Environments

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

I was very interested in this manuscript, which was submitted to me for review. Currently, scientists rarely deal with the issues of the yielding of seed plants, especially in the case of species that are not of great economic importance. It is a well-known fact that properly carried out irrigation usually has a positive effect on the height and quality of the crop yield.

The methodology described in this manuscript have been performed correctly. The research results are presented in an interesting way. However, I believe that Figures could be technically refined, as some of them are not very legible.

The literature cited in this manuscript is not very extensive, it would be good to supplement it with a few new items, despite the fact that, as previously mentioned (the authors also mentioned it), seed yielding research is currently not very popular.

In addition, I would like to suggest that the authors put the keywords in alphabetical order and remove (change) those words that appear in the title of the manuscript.

Finally, please also more accurately align the manuscript from the editorial point of view with the ournal Template.

After a few corrections, I believe that the manuscript can be published in the journal Agronomy. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We are grateful for the time and the efforts you have put into reviewing our manuscript. All your comments and suggestions are important to improving the manuscript.

We would, then, like to reply to the comments you have provided on an earlier version of the manuscript.

(1) I was very interested in this manuscript, which was submitted to me for review. Currently, scientists rarely deal with the issues of the yielding of seed plants, especially in the case of species that are not of great economic importance. It is a well-known fact that properly carried out irrigation usually has a positive effect on the height and quality of the crop yield.

Response :

We thank you for the comment and the interest you have put into our manuscript. Your comments and suggestions have helped us to improve the manuscript.

(2) The methodology described in this manuscript have been performed correctly. The research results are presented in an interesting way. However, I believe that Figures could be technically refined, as some of them are not very legible.

Response:

We thank you for the comment and suggestion. Regarding the figures in the earlier version, we have refined the figures as you may see in this version. Figures 2,3,4,5,6,7, and 8 were all refined. In addition, we could send the original figures with high resolution to the Editor if they are needed.

(3) The literature cited in this manuscript is not very extensive, it would be good to supplement it with a few new items, despite the fact that, as previously mentioned (the authors also mentioned it), seed yielding research is currently not very popular.

Response: We thank you for the comment. As you mentioned, the literature regarding the seed yield of forage grasses is not extensive, and we could not find more literature to add to our reference list. However, we have added other two references.  You may check out references 20 and 21.

(4) In addition, I would like to suggest that the authors put the keywords in alphabetical order and remove (change) those words that appear in the title of the manuscript.

Response: We thank you for the comment. As you suggested, we have arranged the keywords in alphabetical order.

(5) Finally, please also more accurately align the manuscript from the editorial point of view with the ournal Template

Response: We thank you for the comment. We have aligned the manuscript as you suggested.

We would like to thank you again for your insightful comments and suggestions.  We will be happy to reply to any other comments you may provide to our manuscript.

Sincerely,

Authors

Reviewer 2 Report

See attached document for specific comments and requested changes.

A better description of the plant species (e.g. florets per spikelet, breeding system, i.e. self vs cross pollinated?) in the introduction and a better description of the method would greatly improve the manuscript and the readers ability to discern the importance of the traits. All measurements appear to be from the same sample, and are therefore all interrelated, and therefore it reduces the utility for making broader statements.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We would like to thank you for the time and effort you have put into reviewing our manuscript. All your comments and suggestions have helped us to improve the manuscript. 

(1) A better description of the plant species (e.g. florets per spikelet, breeding system, i.e. self vs cross pollinated?) in the introduction and a better description of the method would greatly improve the manuscript and the readers ability to discern the importance of the traits. All measurements appear to be from the same sample, and are therefore all interrelated, and therefore it reduces the utility for making broader statements.

Response: As you mentioned, we have added in the introduction the information describing the species. You may check the first paragraph of the introduction, the information is highlighted in blue color.  The methodology was also improved based on your comments as you may see in highlighted statements.

Besides, given your specific comments and requested changes were provided in the attachment, we have made changes in the manuscript based on your comments. We have then highlighted all the changes in blue color. Please check out the new version of the manuscript for details.

We thank you again for your insightful comments and suggestions.

Sincerely,

Authors

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

the manuscript has been improved. I have one comment one one suggestion for deletion of a word in the attached.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We would like to thank you for the time and effort you and the reviewer took to assess and review our ms.  Your comments and suggestions are important for improving the ms

We would then like to respond to comment for an earlier version of the manuscript on lines 251-255 (see in attachment)
"the awn excision should not influence floret number? unless this accounts for floret abscission?"

Answer:

We thank you for the comment. We agree with you that awn excision could not influence florets number per spikelet. In our study, we observed that the awn excision did not affect the average florets per spikelet. But as we wanted to go deeper, we tried to measure the influence awns could have on the basal, central and apical spikelets, and the results showed a slight but significant increase in florets number at central spikelets, although this increase didn't impact the average florets number. We have revised the statement to make it clear. Please check the highlighted statement in the new ms version.

Besides, we have deleted the word that you highlighted in the conclusion to make the statement more clear.

We thank you again for the comments and suggestions to our ms.

Authors