Dynamic Changes of Fruit Physiological Quality and Sugar Components during Fruit Growth and Development of Actinidia eriantha

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Reading the abstract of the article, the reader gets a clear and accurate picture of the research conducted by the authors, being very comprehensive, containing essential introductory information, presenting the used working method and the obtained results. However, the results obtained should be better exemplified and presented in the abstract.

 

Recommendation 1. Introduce several obtained results in the abstract.

 

The introduction clearly presents the topic, clearly outlining the research ideas, presenting in detail what is already known about this topic.

 

In the material and method chapter, the experience variables are defined and measured properly, the study methods being valid and reliable, there are enough details to repeat the study, the subject of the article being clearly presented.

 

The research results are presented in an inadequate way, some graphs (Figure 1-5) used are difficult to read and understand, the relevant figures are not presented in a clear and visible way.

 

Recommendation 2. Figure 1 to 5 are not explained clearly, how to read data from these two figures? The graphs are supposed to help understand the data, but these graphs make people incomprehensible, and the explanation and discussion about these graphs are also very insufficient. It is recommended to remake these figures in the form of tables and histograms, otherwise please explain in detail so that readers can understand these figures. If you use graphs or tables, you must also add statistical interpretation to the presented data and explain what they represent (eg. standard deviation, standard error, etc.).

 

The conclusions are supported by the obtained results, but also by the bibliographic references, respond to the pursued aim.

 

Bibliographic references are also relevant and recent, with the authors making a correct reference to generally including appropriate key studies, however, the 26 bibliographic sources seem to me few for the approached topic.

 

However, I still believe that the article ”Dynamic changes of fruit physiological quality and sugar components during fruit growth and development of Actinidia eriantha” developed by Junjie Tao, Mengting Wu, Xudong Jiao, Shuangshuang Chen, Dongfeng Jia, Xiaobiao Xu and Chunhui Huang, presents an information opportunity for future research, being a consistent article in itself and so this article meets the proposed research objective.

Author Response

Reviewer 1

 

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Reading the abstract of the article, the reader gets a clear and accurate picture of the research conducted by the authors, being very comprehensive, containing essential introductory information, presenting the used working method and the obtained results. However, the results obtained should be better exemplified and presented in the abstract.

 

Recommendation 1. Introduce several obtained results in the abstract.

The introduction clearly presents the topic, clearly outlining the research ideas, presenting in detail what is already known about this topic.

In the material and method chapter, the experience variables are defined and measured properly, the study methods being valid and reliable, there are enough details to repeat the study, the subject of the article being clearly presented.

The research results are presented in an inadequate way, some graphs (Figure 1-5) used are difficult to read and understand, the relevant figures are not presented in a clear and visible way.

Response: Thanks for your suggestion. To make the results easy to read and understand, we have modified some of the graphs. For exampel, the original Figure 1 has been modified into a table form, the original Figure 4b has been modified to a histograms. Some revisions have also been made to the descriptions of the table and figures. We hope that the table and figures can help the understanding of the results.

Recommendation 2. Figure 1 to 5 are not explained clearly, how to read data from these two figures? The graphs are supposed to help understand the data, but these graphs make people incomprehensible, and the explanation and discussion about these graphs are also very insufficient. It is recommended to remake these figures in the form of tables and histograms, otherwise please explain in detail so that readers can understand these figures. If you use graphs or tables, you must also add statistical interpretation to the presented data and explain what they represent (eg. standard deviation, standard error, etc.).

 Response: Thanks for your suggestion. According to the recommendation 1 and 2, the original Figure 1 has been remarked in the form of table and the original Figure 4b has been redrawn in the form of histograms. Other figures were all redrawn and added standard deviation and significance difference levels. Hopefully these revised table and figures are easy to read and understand.

The conclusions are supported by the obtained results, but also by the bibliographic references, respond to the pursued aim. Bibliographic references are also relevant and recent, with the authors making a correct reference to generally including appropriate key studies, however, the 26 bibliographic sources seem to me few for the approached topic.

 Response: Thanks for your suggestion. We have added several related references in the revised manuscript.

However, I still believe that the article ”Dynamic changes of fruit physiological quality and sugar components during fruit growth and development of Actinidia eriantha” developed by Junjie Tao, Mengting Wu, Xudong Jiao, Shuangshuang Chen, Dongfeng Jia, Xiaobiao Xu and Chunhui Huang, presents an information opportunity for future research, being a consistent article in itself and so this article meets the proposed research objective.

 Response: Thank you very much.

Reviewer 2 Report

Please, see attached file

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

The manuscript requires some corrections.

Abstract - please extend the abbreviations.

The introduction is too general (lines 48-67).

Line 80 - explain the abbreviation BBCH.

The quality of the figures is not good - the figures are too small to observe the changes described in the results.

 

Author Response

Reviewer 3

 

 

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

The manuscript requires some corrections.

Abstract - please extend the abbreviations.

Response: The full names of the abbreviations (AsA, SS and DAFB) in the Abstract have been added.

 

The introduction is too general (lines 48-67).

Response: Thanks for your comments. The lines 48-67 are mainly about the brief introduction and research status related to the fruit quality of A. eriantha. We have revised this paragraph and added some materials, hoping to improve the expression of this paragraph. 

 

Line 80 - explain the abbreviation BBCH.

Response: The full name of the abbreviation BBCH (Biologische Bundesantalt, Bundessortenamt and Chemische Industrie) has been added.

 

The quality of the figures is not good - the figures are too small to observe the changes described in the results.

Response: Thanks for your suggestion. The figures have been revised and hopefully these revised pictures have improved in quality and will help with reading and understanding of the results.

Reviewer 4 Report

Please see attachment.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Reviewer 4

 

 This research represent a valuable contribution to studies of A. eriantha during fruit growth and development. The article is well organized and, in my opinion, should be accepted after MINOR revision.

Particular comments.

Point 1:

At the first mention of AsA, SS, DAFB their full names should be added (Abstract).

Response: The full names of AsA, SS and DAFB have been added where they first mentioned.

 

Point 2:

Explain how you determined the soft ripening stage (fruit ripening stage) and how long the period is (Materials and Methods)! Measuring the firmness of the fruits should definitely be included in future studies.

Response: Thanks for your suggestion. The fruit soft ripening stage was determined by measuring the fruit firmness. When the fruit firmness reached 1.0 kg·cm^-2, it was considered to have reached the soft ripening stage, which was about 200 days after full bloom. The index of fruit firmness when the fruit reached soft ripening stage have been added in the Material and Methods section.

 

Point 3:

Line 312-316. Correct the mistakes in the following sentences.

Among the four SS genes, SS1 had a relatively high expression level in the whole fruit development stage, with the highest expression level at 100 DAFB (Figures 7a, 7b, 7c and 7d). In addition, SS1 also had a high expression at 25 DAFB, 115 DAFB and soft-ripe stage (Figure 7a). The expression patterns of SS2, SS3 and SS5 were basically the same (Figure 7b, 7c and 7d).

Response: The mistakes in those sentences have been corrected: The expression level of SS1 genes was higher at 25 DAFB and 85 DAFB, while the expression levels in other stages were much lower than these two periods (Figure 7a). The expression patterns of SS2, SS4 and SS5 were basically the same (Figure 7b, 7c and 7d).

.

Point 4:

Line 320. Correct CSI4.

Response: CSI4 has been revised to CWI4.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The article ”Dynamic changes of fruit physiological quality and sugar components during fruit growth and development of Actinidia eriantha” developed by Junjie Tao, Mengting Wu, Xudong Jiao, Shuangshuang Chen, Dongfeng Jia, Xiaobiao Xu and Chunhui Huang, presents an information opportunity for future research, being a consistent article in itself and so this article meets the proposed research objective.

Reviewer 2 Report

The figures in the manuscript are presented with graphical mistakes.

Author Response

Reviewer 2

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The figures in the manuscript are presented with graphical mistakes.

Response: Thanks for your valuable comments. The mistakes in Figure 4a, 4e, Figure 6e, 6f, 6g have been revised.