Tissue-Specific Responses of Cereals to Two Fusarium Diseases and Effects of Plant Height and Drought Stress on Their Susceptibility

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

the presented review entitled "Understanding tissue-specific responses of cereals to two Fusarium pathogens and effects of plant height and drought stress on disease susceptibility" is a descriptive text about FHB and FCR, two pathologies caused by Fusarium.

Although the topic is interesting, the manuscript lacks of synthetic parts, graphics or flowcharts explaining better several mecanisms related in the text such us the genes involved in the developement of the pathologies. 

For me, it will be interesting to add more (recent) data to the manuscript and improve it with a personal vision and synthetic ideas because at this stage it is quite a chapter in a phytopathology course for some students.

Further english editing is needed to make it appear in a better shape

 

Author Response

Dear reviwer,

Many thanks for helping us with this manuscript. I am grateful to the constructive comments/suggestions from your feedback, and we have revised the manuscript accordingly. The followings are detailed point-to-point responses to the comments/suggestions:

 

1. The manuscript lacks of synthetic parts, graphics or flowcharts explaining better several mechanisms related in the text such as the genes involved in the development of the pathologies. – Similar to the situations for other necrotrophic pathogens, we still do not know much in regarding to genes involved in the development of the Fusarium pathogens for either of the diseases discussed in this manuscript;
2. For me, it will be interesting to add more (recent data) to the manuscript and improve it with a personal vision and synthetic ideas because at this stage it is quite a chapter in a phytopathology course for some students. – We have included recent publications in the revised manuscript;
3. Further English editing is needed to make it appear in a better shape. – To address this issue, we have made several revisions as highlighted in the tracked version of the revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Chunji Liu

CSIRO Agriculture and Food

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript is describing and discussing the knowledge about specific-tissue responses of bread wheat and barley to Fusarium head blight (FHB) and crown rot (FCR). The morphology, and genetic bases were included in this review, with short turn on stem anatomy and hormonal physiology.

1. Maybe slightly improve the title.
2. The introduction is well done and sufficient, due to declared focus on 1. plant height and 2. drought stress impacts on disease susceptibility.
3. The opposite susceptibility in stem height to FHB and FCR was well discussed. Maybe missing a clarity about this fact in abstract.
4. The hypothesis about DELLA is actual scientific hypothesis, or hypothesis of authors?
5. Some detailed observations are included into the pdf of the manuscript.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Many thanks for helping us with this manuscript. I am grateful to the constructive comments/suggestions from your feedback, and we have revised the manuscript accordingly. The followings are detailed point-to-point responses to the comments/suggestions:

1. Maybe slightly improve the title. - we have modified the title based on this suggestions;
2. The introduction is well done and sufficient, due to declared focus on 1. Plant height and 2. Drought stress impacts on disease susceptibility – Thank you;
3. The opposite susceptibility in stem height to FHB and FCR was well discussed. Maybe missing a clarity about this fact in abstract – To address this concern, we have revised the Abstract;
4. The hypothesis about DELLA is actual scientific hypothesis, or hypothesis of authors? - With the believe that the confusion is caused by the description in the Abstract, we revised the description;
5. Some detailed observations are included into the pdf of the manuscript – We have examined these details and made changes where appropriate.

As highlighted in the tracked version of the revised manuscript, we have also made several other changes focused on possible implications of the contents reviewed in each of the topics.

Kind regards,

Chunji Liu

CSIRO Agriculture and Food