Shading Level and Harvest Time Affect the Photosynthetic and Physiological Properties of Basil Varieties

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Most of my comments are based in the methods section. I feel that the work was of reasonable quality, but the methods are not detailed enough for someone to replicate the research.  The discussion is well done in my opinion. There are some other comments as well.

Line 39 - this sentence can be removed- it is understood that light is essential for plants.

Line 59, 320 (and several others in the paper) - Salvia, sunflowers, sage, etc - when listing the common name of a plant or other organism, list the scientific name after it the first time you use it.

Line 90 - "two commercial basil plants" - reword to "two commercial basil cultivars"

Line 90 - list the seed source (company and location) for these two varieties.

When was the study done? What time of year - January, July? etc.

Where was the study done? - please list lat. long. and location-

What size pots were used? (line 92)

What fertilizer regime was used on the plants?

What were the ambient greenhouse conditions - average temperatures?

Line 100 - what does regular greenhouse lighting mean ?  were supplemental lights used? - if so what.

Table 1 - these values do not appear to be "measured" but are simply levels of 100% sunlight divided in half and so on.  How was the 100% treatment measured?  what light meter was used and is this a season average or just one day?

Need information on plot size and replication number - later in the methods the number of reps for measurements are given (10 reps etc) - are these 10 single plant replicates? 10 leaves? how many plants were grown under each shade regime and how was this replicated.

Chlorophyll/carotenoid/anthocyanin content etc - need more information on the measurements-  where on the plant were they taken?  When in the growth of the plant were they taken.....6 weeks old? 10 weeks? -

Line 239 - statements like "the most normal OJIP" should be avoided in the results section - simply stating results here and then in discussion include statements such as these.

Figure 3 - no bars are on these figures.

Overall the English language quality is fairly good, but can still be  improved for better readability. I am not listing all the changes that should be made, but these are simply examples - the entire paper should be reviewed again for English language - overall it is in pretty good shape, but needs minor improvement.

Line 15 - instead of the sentence "we scrutinize the harvesting time." a better way to word this would be.  "In addition, we evaluated the impact of harvest time during the day was evaluated." - by not mentioning time of day in the original sentence, the reader may be confused about whether harvest time meant time of day OR the day (maturity) harvested.

Line 76 - "shading at different levels is a common practice for greenhouse crop production in different parts of the world (especially in the mid-range latitudes) on the seasons characterized".....here replace "on" with "during" or "in"

Line 189 - "50% light levels, while there was no considerable difference..." here replace "no considerable"  with either "no difference" or "no significant" difference.

Line 321 "the shadow receive lower levels of light per unit of leaf area" - this should be rephrased "grown under shade receive lower levels of light...."

Author Response

Response to reviewer 1

Most of my comments are based in the methods section. I feel that the work was of reasonable quality, but the methods are not detailed enough for someone to replicate the research.  The discussion is well done in my opinion. There are some other comments as well.

Line 39 - this sentence can be removed- it is understood that light is essential for plants.

Line 59, 320 (and several others in the paper) - Salvia, sunflowers, sage, etc - when listing the common name of a plant or other organism, list the scientific name after it the first time you use it.

Response: Thanks for the suggestion, Done

Line 90 - "two commercial basil plants" - reword to "two commercial basil cultivars"

Response: Thanks for the suggestion, Done

Line 90 - list the seed source (company and location) for these two varieties.

Response: Details regarding the seed sources are added to the revised manuscript

When was the study done? What time of year - January, July? etc.

Response: The time of the year and details are added to the revised manuscript

Where was the study done? - please list lat. long. and location-

Response: Details are added to the revised manuscript

What size pots were used? (line 92)

Response: they were in 9.0 diameter x 12.3 height cm. This details are now added to the revised manuscript

What fertilizer regime was used on the plants?

Response: soil was used as the culture media and since no deficiency symptoms were observed no fertilizer were used. The details about the soil characteristics are now added to the supplementary material

What were the ambient greenhouse conditions - average temperatures?

Response: the details are now added to the materials and methods

Line 100 - what does regular greenhouse lighting mean ?  were supplemental lights used? - if so what.

Response: In the table 1 light intensities during different time-points of day are presented. Since the study was carried out during spring time, therefore only natural light was applied to plants in the greenhouse

Table 1 - these values do not appear to be "measured" but are simply levels of 100% sunlight divided in half and so on.  How was the 100% treatment measured?  what light meter was used and is this a season average or just one day?

Response: The required information in this regard are added to the material and method of revised manuscript. These values are the average light intensity during the growing season, which was measured by Fluorpen (Photon Systems Instruments, PSI, Czech Republic). The shade nets were placed in a distance that precisely decrease the light intensity by 50% and 70% of the full natural sunlight. The standard error was added to the Table 1. This detailed information are added to the material and method of revised manuscript.

Need information on plot size and replication number - later in the methods the number of reps for measurements are given (10 reps etc) - are these 10 single plant replicates? 10 leaves? how many plants were grown under each shade regime and how was this replicated.

Response: The required information in this regard are added to the statistical part of the material and method of revised manuscript. 100 plants were grown under each treatment, 10 of which were selected for photosynthesis measurements and three were used for physiological evaluations.

Chlorophyll/carotenoid/anthocyanin content etc - need more information on the measurements-  where on the plant were they taken?  When in the growth of the plant were they taken.....6 weeks old? 10 weeks? –

Response: The required information in this regard are added to the material and method of revised manuscript. Young-fully developed leaves were used for the measurements. The measurements were done 12 days after light treatments and in total 42 days after seed culture the measurements were started.

Line 239 - statements like "the most normal OJIP" should be avoided in the results section - simply stating results here and then in discussion include statements such as these.

Response: considered and revised

Figure 3 - no bars are on these figures.

Response: since adding the bars would result in problem in good appearance of the graph and make some of the graph invisibles, they are avoided for better clarity.

Overall the English language quality is fairly good, but can still be  improved for better readability. I am not listing all the changes that should be made, but these are simply examples - the entire paper should be reviewed again for English language - overall it is in pretty good shape, but needs minor improvement.

Line 15 - instead of the sentence "we scrutinize the harvesting time." a better way to word this would be.  "In addition, we evaluated the impact of harvest time during the day was evaluated." - by not mentioning time of day in the original sentence, the reader may be confused about whether harvest time meant time of day OR the day (maturity) harvested.

Line 76 - "shading at different levels is a common practice for greenhouse crop production in different parts of the world (especially in the mid-range latitudes) on the seasons characterized".....here replace "on" with "during" or "in"

 Line 189 - "50% light levels, while there was no considerable difference..." here replace "no considerable"  with either "no difference" or "no significant" difference.

Line 321 "the shadow receive lower levels of light per unit of leaf area" - this should be rephrased "grown under shade receive lower levels of light...."

Response: a revision on English of the manuscript and based on the reviewer suggestion is considered and revised

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript titled “Shading level and harvest time affect the photosynthetic and physiological properties of basil varieties” is well written and the results are interesting. For this reason, the study is suitable for publication after introducing the necessary corrections listed below.

1.       Keyword’s usefulness is to make easier the search of the article using the most common scientific search engines. Since several keywords are or repeated several times in the abstract, I strongly advise the authors to change some of the proposed keywords with new ones. Also, MDPI allows the authors to add maximum of 8 keywords. Authors can add more keywords to increase the visibility of their manuscript.

2.       Please mention the company or institute name and location from where you obtained the basil seeds. What was the viability, moisture percentage etc…

3.       How was the light intensity measured. What kind of shading material was used? Can authors please show some images?

4.       What was the temperature and humidity profile inside the greenhouse throughout the growing period?

5.       Line 183: Please italicize P value. Also change in whole manuscript.

6.       Please see lines 182 and 216. What was exactly used? SD or SE? Please correct it in whole manuscript.

7.       Figure 1 and 2: Why the results of 5 pm harvest is not included?

8.       In all bar charts, remove leader lines when writing DMR letters.

9.       In case bar charts, it would be better to use suitable colours considering colour blindness.

10.   In figure 3, authors have used line graphs with smoothed lines. It would be better to fit regression curves, also provide regression coefficients and equations. Or simple bars are also fine. Also, it is very necessary to show the significance of your data by using error bars and suitable post hoc test.

Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

In this manuscript (agronomy-2587034) entitled ‘Shading level and harvest time affect the photosynthetic and physiological properties of basil varieties’ submitted to Agronomy, Paria Eskandarzade and colleagues have investigated the impact of light intensities and harvesting times on the photosynthesis of green and purple basil. This research is interesting and complete, and I have some minor concerns to be addressed to improve the quality of this manuscript.

1, Growth pictures of green and purple basil varieties used in this study should be shown in the revision. In addition, pictures to show to shade nets with the ability to reduce light intensity installed in the greenhouse should be exhibited in the revised figures.

2, For Figure 1, plant tissues employed in the analysis of pigment concentrations should be described in details in the revised legend.

3, For Figure 2, authors analyzed carbohydrate contents in basil leaves. What is the situation for other plant tissues?

4, For Figure 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, authors employed different light intensities (100% sunlight, 50% of sunlight and 30% of sunlight). Considering that different leaves from the same plant could not receive the sunlight equally, I suggest authors analyze and discuss the shading levels based on both leaf situation and basil varieties.

Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

Response to reviewer 2 remarks

In this manuscript (agronomy-2587034) entitled ‘Shading level and harvest time affect the photosynthetic and physiological properties of basil varieties’ submitted to Agronomy, Paria Eskandarzade and colleagues have investigated the impact of light intensities and harvesting times on the photosynthesis of green and purple basil. This research is interesting and complete, and I have some minor concerns to be addressed to improve the quality of this manuscript.

1, Growth pictures of green and purple basil varieties used in this study should be shown in the revision. In addition, pictures to show to shade nets with the ability to reduce light intensity installed in the greenhouse should be exhibited in the revised figures.

Response: The suggested pictures of the plants are added to the revised manuscript. However, since on that time no picture on the nets were taken, we cannot add those picture to the paper. However, we are doing another experiment on the effect of shade nets in four levels on lettuce that three of them were exactly used for the previous experiments on the basils that can be seen in the following image

2, For Figure 1, plant tissues employed in the analysis of pigment concentrations should be described in details in the revised legend.

Response: Details are added to the revised manuscript

3, For Figure 2, authors analyzed carbohydrate contents in basil leaves. What is the situation for other plant tissues?

Response: Details on the plant samples and the time for the measurements are added to the revised manuscript.

4, For Figure 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, authors employed different light intensities (100% sunlight, 50% of sunlight and 30% of sunlight). Considering that different leaves from the same plant could not receive the sunlight equally, I suggest authors analyze and discuss the shading levels based on both leaf situation and basil varieties.

Response: Actually we made several measurements under each net in different places and the variation in light intensity was not in a level to make huge differences. However, we made discussion considering the output of statistical analysis. Also the details of different light intensities under the nets with standard errors of the means are added to table 1.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The genus Ocimum comprises more than a hundred of species, with basil being the most prominent and widely cultivated due to its commercial significance. Basil finds versatile applications across the food, pharmaceutical, and cosmetics industries. This study investigated the impact of light intensities and harvesting times on the photosynthesis of two basil varieties. The provided figures and tables are captivating and the logical flow of the manuscript is commendable. Therefore, I believe that the publication of this manuscript will be of interest to a broad range of scientists who work on basil. One suggestion is that the authors standardize the original OJIP and present it in the form of scatter plots with data analysis graphs such as VOK, △VOK, VOJ, △VOP...

Minor editing of English language required.

Author Response

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The genus Ocimum comprises more than a hundred of species, with basil being the most prominent and widely cultivated due to its commercial significance. Basil finds versatile applications across the food, pharmaceutical, and cosmetics industries. This study investigated the impact of light intensities and harvesting times on the photosynthesis of two basil varieties. The provided figures and tables are captivating and the logical flow of the manuscript is commendable. Therefore, I believe that the publication of this manuscript will be of interest to a broad range of scientists who work on basil. One suggestion is that the authors standardize the original OJIP and present it in the form of scatter plots with data analysis graphs such as VOK, △VOK, VOJ, △VOP...

Response: Thanks for the positive feedback on the manuscript. We have calculated the OJIP-derived data based on the reviewer suggestion and presented the related graphs in the supplementary data section and added some information on the materials and methods and in the result and discussion on that regard.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Significantly improved over the first version, this version is acceptable, with only some very minor editorial comments (see English section, below).

I like the addition of figure 8.

I think the authors misinterpreted my prior comment on Figure 3 - I understand that adding bars would make the figure messy - However, in the figure caption the last sentence says "Bars are means +-SE." - because there are no bars present this sentence needs to be removed.

Line 58 - "The cons and pros of high..." is a bit colloquial - perhaps rephrase to "The impact of light intensity on plant metabolism has been thoroughly researched previously." (or something similar)

Line 63-  change to "growth de to increases in CO2 fixation"

Line 204 - "One hundred" instead of "hundred"

Line 93 replace "were sown" with "and sown" since

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors, thanks for incorporating my suggestions.

Reviewer 4 Report

Authors should be congratulated for improving the manuscript in light of reviewer's comments.