Primed Seeds of NERICA 4 Stored for Long Periods under High Temperature and Humidity Conditions Maintain Germination Rates
, Eri Ishikawa 1, Julie Ann Mher Alcances Libron 1, Keita Goto 2, Emmanuel Odama 2, Yoshihiro Nakao 3, Shin Yabuta 4 and Jun-Ichi Sakagami 4,*
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
General comments:
This is an interesting and important study as seed storage of primed seeds in sub-tropical and tropical conditions is under-researched. The manuscript was very well written and presented and needs only a few minor revisions, which are detailed below.
Abstract:
Line 23: please replace ‘than’ with ‘compared to’.
Lines 24-26: It is not clear what these results refer to: what is compared to what?
Introduction:
Line 47: It might be clearer to put a full stop after '[8,9]' and then start a new sentence after that.
Line 72: please replace ‘and’ by ‘, which’.
Lines 78-80: This sentence is not very clear.
Materials and Methods:
Line 123: please change to: ‘in an oven at’
Line 126: ‘formula’ should be plural.
Line 150: ‘H2O2’ should be changed to ‘H2O2’ throughout the manuscript.
Results:
Lines 176-178: This seems to be text from a template that needs to be removed.
Line 189: at 90 days of storage the primed seeds still seem to germinate to higher levels than the non-primed seeds, even though the differences were not significant.
Line 206: please add ‘also’ between ‘were’ and ‘not’.
Line 227: please add a space between % and RH.
Lines 243-246: are the correlations described accurately in these sentences? The results in Table 2 seem to suggest otherwise?
Lines 255-256: What does ‘between treatments’ refer to? I am not sure that I can see significant differences between priming treatments at 0 or 60 days in figure 4.
Line 263: please add a space between % and RH.
Lines 275-277: are the correlations described accurately in this sentence? The results in Table 2 seem to suggest otherwise?
Line 283: Add ‘However’, before ‘the initial germination’.
Line 287: please clarify what ‘smaller’ means and also what ‘more varied seedlings’ means (and please indicate which figure/table is referred to for the conclusion regarding seedlings).
Discussion:
Line 299: Fig.1: this is written out as ‘Figure’ elsewhere in the manuscript: please make sure the style is consistent throughout the manuscript.
Line 345: ‘losses’ instead of ‘loses’.
Lines 352-353: It is not clear how this conclusion can be drawn from the results/discussion. Please clarify.
Line 378: A full stop is needed after [73].
Line 387: it is not clear when ‘the reduction in the antioxidant capacity’ would have occurred: over the storage period/time? Please clarify.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors,
I suggest standardizing the acronyms for ROS, standardizing the citation of figures.
It could improve the quality of the graphics, they are with low resolution.
The rest I believe meets the basic need for a manuscript.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
What were the field germination rates of a batch of seeds before laying
Do the studies provide data on laboratory germination, viability?
Have these indicators been studied in a field experiment?
A phytosanitary assessment of seed placement was carried out before the experiment
(the presence or presence of a pathogen affects the storage of seeds)
Has the mass factor of 1000 grains been used to determine the density of the kernel
rice?
As part of the ongoing research, the change was fixed biochemical indicators of rice seeds such as amylase, phosphorylase, etc.?
line 317 - Physical damage to seeds - explain this micro and macro seed injury?
line 377. - The indicators of antioxidant enzymes were taken into account and recorded. (superoxide dismutase, catalase and peroxidase) during temporary storage of seeds?
line 415 - high energy seeds - what are the numerical limits for the quality of these seeds?
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Please remove parts of the article template – pages 1, 5, 15 and 16
The manuscript needs some English corrections.
I suggest remove “increased” in sentence ‘…, increased solute leakage, increased generation of hydrogen peroxide…” – line 25
Please correct the writing of molecular formulas with subscripts e.g. KNO3 – KNO3
Please, write Latin names of plants in italic – line 101
Line – 181-182 I recommend change sentence “…non-primed and halo- 181 primed seeds reduced from 69% to 52% and 97% to 77%, respectively….” In “…initial germination of primed and haloprimed seeds was reduced about 17 and 20%, respectively”.
Line 182-184 – as above “…after 90 days of storage, initial germination of hydroprimed and osmoprimed seeds was decreased about 21 and 17%, respectively”. I recommend these changes, because in lines 186-187 authors again state what the percentage of seed germination was before storage. These data were wrote twice.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
