Diminishing Farm Diversity of East African Highland Bananas in Banana Bunchy Top Disease Outbreak Areas of Burundi—The Effect of Both Disease and Control Approaches
, Cheikh Amet Bassirou Sane 2, Innocent Nduwimana 1, Celestin Niyongere 3 and Bonaventure Aman Omondi 1Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Well written manuscript. The results can be of valuable information in policy making process for areas involved in banana plantation. The study emphasizes the critical need of maintaining genetic diversity and developing genetically improved varieties for BBTD.
Author Response
Thank you for your appreciation
Reviewer 2 Report
In this manuscript, the authors assess the effect of BBTD on banana cultivar diversity, seed sources and seed selection, which shed light on the future strategy on the sustainability of banana diversity. My main concerns are about the household survey sample, its data accuracy and reliability. Do the authors have the previous formal record for the reference of these data?
Line 35: Are the author sure that: Banana (Musa spp.) is the world’s fourth most important food crop (after rice, wheat, and maize) in terms of gross value of production? Do the authors have the latest data source? The citing paper was published in 2009.
Line 132: “Data were collected on the recall of diversity of bananas planted in 2006, in 2010, and currently in 2016.”, which means the data collection is from 4 year ago? Why the authors prefer so old data and just recall?
Author Response
Point 1: Line 35: Are the author sure that: Banana (Musa spp.) is the world’s fourth most important food crop (after rice, wheat, and maize) in terms of gross value of production? Do the authors have the latest data source? The citing paper was published in 2009.
Response 1: The latest data source has been added in the manuscript. According to this source, banana is not the fourth crop but the sixth
Point 2: Line 132: “Data were collected on the recall of diversity of bananas planted in 2006, in 2010, and currently in 2016.”, which means the data collection is from 4 year ago? Why the authors prefer so old data and just recall?
Response 2: The Banana Bunchy top disease was reported in Burundi in 1980s but it was more prevalent since 2007. Main interventions like farmers trainings, management demonstrations started in 2010. This recall was done to have farmers’ estimations (as no previous study was done) before the higher incidence of BBTD (2006), during the interventions (2010) and in the period of the study (2016). This study was conducted in 2016 in the framework of the master study of the corresponding author. Thus, the writing of this manuscript delayed due to different understandable reasons
