Germination and Seedling Development Responses of Sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) Seeds to Temperature and Different Levels of Water Availability

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (New Reviewer)

In this work, authors investigated the reaction of sunflower seeds to different levels of temperature, water, seeds densities in Petri dish, and antifungal application techniques using four independent experiments.  

However, the manuscript has the following concerns before acceptance of the article for publication.

 

Line 3: It is suggested, different levels of water availability.

Line 12: It seems four independent experiments have been conducted in this work. In the abstract, it should be clearly mentioned.

Line 16: "Planting densities" is used in the field, maybe seed density in the Petri dish is better.

Line 113: Mention the full name for the first time.

Line 114-116: On the basis of what reference? The appropriate reference should be provided.

Line 129: PD has been mentioned previously.

Mention with the full name for the first time

Line 130: Formulas should be numbered.

Line 132: Alternatively, you may mention the full name or describe the abbreviation below the formula.

Line 134: PD

Line 164: What was the experimental design in your work for each experiment? (CRD? RCBD?)

It should be mentioned the detail of your experimental design.

Line 168: There are many variables in this work, this result is relevant to which variable?? If you want to mention the results of the normality test you should provide for all variables.

Line 169: How was seedling growth measured?

Line 189: The chart presents the relationship between growth (mm) and time! the title should be corrected.

Line 190: The "growth" in the vertical axis should be replaced by this more precise phrase.

Line 229: The type of mean comparison test

(LSD) should be mentioned next.

Line 233-234: Most of the levels are not significantly different for all the variables. How do you interpret this result?

Line 261: Using the general noun "growth" is dumb. Write exactly what variable you mean.

Line 349: sunflower

Line 390: PD

Revise the whole text

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Professor,

Enclosed please find our answers to your questions.

Sincerely,

The Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

Authors have analyzed different parameters, including temperature, water levels, planting density and priming method to optimize the best conditions for germination seedling development of Sunflower. The results of the article can be helpful for the researchers working on sunflower. Listed below are the few points that can be taken into consideration for improving the manuscript.

- Error bars and number of observations (n) made needs to be given for each data point shown in all the figure. Further, it is not clear how many times the experiments have been repeated (number of independent biological replications of the experiments conducted).

- All the letters used in different tables used to indicate the significance levels needs to be defined clearly.

- It would be good, if the data for later stages of development and the impact of different parameters studies on yield can also be given.

- The language of the manuscript needs to be improved at few places.

Author Response

Dear Professor,

Enclosed please find our answers for your questions.

Sincerely,

The Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This manuscript describes germination of sunflower seeds (no variety named) in various amounts of water at various temperatures.

Sunflowers are not grown hydroponically. They are sown at 3-5 cm depth in soil, where temperatures are lower than in the air, and where the availability of water depends on the soil structure and chemistry, in addition to total amount of water in the substrate. If the authors had used some of these data to then examine the effect of temperature and water on sunflower seed germination and seedling growth in soil, the experiments would have been worthwhile. By themselves, they are not very useful agronomically. Similarly, number of seeds / petri dish is not the same as seeds/ row or space between rows. The fungicide experiments are mislabelled (Fig 9 y axis) or the captions are not accurate (Fig 7 and 8). The fungal experiments seem to have been added on and are not really related to the rest of the manuscript.

In addition, the authors only used one variety of sunflower seed, which actually come in two types-- oil and confection, each with different germination and growth characteristics. 

Other matters, before I got tired:

line 89 TKW? don't explain it only in the abstract.

110 growth chamber information?

Table 1 -- we do not need TN in the table. explain the trt in the text when you refer to it. What is RAW?

Fig 1 data are NOT symmetrical in a bell curve

Fig 2 Colors are hard to see, letters are too small. Us squares, triangles, circels, dots and sashes for the lines.

Fig 4 label the y-axis. What is growth response? 

Growth is a rate-- change in size per unit of time. Height, length, width-- are all measurements not dependent on time, and that is what is measured in this mss.

Finally, the manuscript does not properly follow the Rule of the Decimal Place. If there are no numbers to the left of the decimal point, you can present up to two numbers to the right of the decimal One or two numbers to the left of the decimal allows one digit to the right of the decimal. Three or more digits to the left means no digits to the right of the decimal, and in fact no decimal is needed in that case. 

The manuscript does not contain data that can be utilised by farmers, deals with stresses that are not found in agricultural situations, and needs improvement in overall presentation. I do not recommend accepting the manuscript for publication.

 

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments to Authors:

1- The authors determined the effect of heat treatments on seed germination and development. The determination of optimal temperature is not new and already determined for sunflowers. There is no new novel finding from this study!,

2- There is a major experimental defect about the water stress analysis in this study: what is the water holding capacity for the soil that were used on this study? What is the full/optimal water holding capacity for the soil? What is the saturation level for each water treatment used in this study? …..to inforce a drought stress/water stress analysis for ant plant, saturation level/soil holding capacity must be done correctly!!!....based on that the whole study is not correct and could not be accepted for publication.

3- The whole manuscript required extensive and major English editing and restructuring for the whole manuscript abstract/introduction/materials and methods/discussion sections……the English level is not reaching a scientific publication level for the journal.

4-What is the experimental design of this study???....is it CRD or RBD????....without clear design of the analysis the statistical analysis is not correct at all!