Effects of Post-Anthesis Drought and Irrigation on Grain Yield, Canopy Temperature and ¹³C Discrimination in Common Wheat, Spelt, and Einkorn

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In this paper, the responses of common wheat, spelt, and einkorn in the light of yield, canopy temperature and grain ¹³C content to drought and irrigation after anthesis were confirmed based 4 years field experiments. And it found that different water shortage degree after flowering pose different effect on canopy temperature and grain Δ ¹³C discrimination, which is interesting finding both for the monitoring of drought and for screening the short-term and long-term response of genotypes to different levels of soil water availability.

But there are some problems in this paper need to be solved as in the following.

 (1) In terms of experiments, it is not clear why Ponticus, Rebel and Rubiota are used in 2018-2019, while Artix, Butterfly and Rumona are used in 2020-2021. It should be better for same cultivars tested for 4 years.

(2) Whether the groundwater level and soil moisture be observed? If it is, what are about the instruments, the frequency and the depth? What are about the depth of the average groundwater level if it is not monitored in the experiments?

(3) How are about the water balance in Fig.2? And why it is can be used to calculated the differentiation of available water content for variants S and IR as showed in Line 123~125?

 (4) What about the soil salinization or the salinity in irrigation water? In irrigation treatment, whether the leaching requirement of water be considered?

(5) Why did not use data for 4 years for correlation analysis instead of 1 years as showed in Line 245~247?

(6) Are the test plots closed in the 4 sides of the horizontal direction and the bottom side? If they are, what's the depth?

(7) How to get the HI value in L186~187. The meaning of Fig.3 need to be explained in detail.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

thank you for the valuable comments, which made it possible to improve the quality of the manuscript. Your comments and request for additions have been incorporated into the article. Please see the attachment.

Sincerely,

Gabriela Kurešová

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper compares the differences between grain growth yield, post-anthesis temperature, and grain ¹³C discrimination of common wheat, spelt and einkorn wheat under water shortage and irrigation conditions, illustrated the effects of drought on wheat yield and other studied characteristics in the period after flowering. It is of great significance to study wheat yield under different conditions of drought and irrigation. However, the experimental design part of the paper may not be complete and clear. The data analysis part is not complete, and the discussion part is not in-depth enough, so that it may not be enough to fully support the conclusion. 

 

Here are some minor concerns and questions for clarity: 

 L91: The average temperature and annual precipitation are inconsistent with the data in Table 1, please check it.

 L92: Figure 2 includes potential evapotranspiration, please add here.

 L95: Advise you to add a north arrow to Figure 1.

 L99: he depth of groundwater will affect the effective utilization of groundwater by winter wheat. Please supplement the groundwater depth.

 L99: What is “Mehlich 3”?

  L116: The experimental design is not clear: the upper and lower irrigation limits of S and IR treatments need to be indicated respectively.

 L142: Are different plots arranged adjacent to each other? If so, are there any anti-seepage treatments between adjacent plots? Besides, why the area of each block is not consistent?

 L153: It only said “after noon”, did not say the specific time and the canopy elevation. The canopy temperature varies at different times and heights. Please add the specific time and elevation of canopy temperature measurements.

 L186: Explain the meaning of HI and how to measure HI. HI data is not reflected in all your tables.

 L190: The header lacks “Cultivar”.

 L181-188,201-203,227-229: Recalculate the averages.

 L213-214,245-247: Please supplement the table of correlation coefficients among indicators and carry out the significance test of correlation coefficients.

 L219,233: Present the data in the form of “means ± std. deviation”.

 L257: Please add more in-depth interpretation and analysis of the corresponding results.

 L264-270: The effects of roots on water use and yield are discussed here, but no root data are available in this paper. Please add it in section 3.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

thank you for the valuable comments, which made it possible to improve the quality of the manuscript. Your comments and request for additions have been incorporated into the article. Please see the attachment.

Sincerely,

Gabriela Kurešová

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

Your paper is a well written paper. However, there are some expressions and results of data analysis, and interpretation to them that need to be revised, as well as more appropriately discussed in the Discussion section.

I attach my comments in a PDF file.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

thank you for the valuable comments, which made it possible to improve the quality of the manuscript. Your comments and request for additions have been incorporated into the article. Please see the attachment.

Sincerely,

Gabriela Kurešová

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Thanks to the authors for providing this study

This study provides practical information on: “Effects of post-anthesis drought and irrigation on grain yield, canopy temperature and 13C discrimination in common wheat, spelt, and einkorn”.

Main comment: The results of the study are expected in advance because it is normal for drought to affect the productivity and quality of wheat, especially on species in environments where drought rarely occurs.

On the other hand, the method of carrying out the experiment in terms of coverage at the time of rain: It needs more explanation (How was it implemented? How to prevent rain water from leaking from the adjacent uncovered experimental plots?

Usually in areas where drought rarely occurs, and the precipitation rate is good or high: when the drought tolerance test and evaluation of varieties or species are studied, experiments are carried out in pots in suitable greenhouses so that irrigation is fully controlled. On the other hand, it is explained by genetic testing.

However, please answer the following comments:

 

 

keywords:

·       I see rewriting the keywords and modifying. Some words delete, such as: (root zone; wheat ancestor) and the addition: (drought; grain yield; common wheat; spelt; and einkorn)

 

In Introduction:

·       What is mentioned in the lines: 43-50 needs to be cited with appropriate references.

In Materials and Methods:

·       The subtitle in line 87 must be modified so that it is only the site description because there is nothing about the materials.

·       Line 108: Very Important: It is mentioned that the crops were covered during the rain!

o   How was this implemented?

o   What type of cover is used to cover?

o   Was the coverage continuous during the rainy season or temporary? because what if it rained at night and the cover was not available.

o   It would be nice if there were pictures of the coverage method.

·       Add a table showing the specifications of the plant materials used in the experiment, such as: weight of a thousand grains - source - year of production ... etc.

·       Nothing was mentioned about fertilization (types - quantities - dates of addition)

·       Line 144: Why were the whole plant samples taken:

o   how many were from each replicate? What are the measurements made on it?

o   What measurements are made after harvest (yield traits)

o   Write more details in the sampling section.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

thank you for the valuable comments, which made it possible to improve the quality of the manuscript. Your comments and request for additions have been incorporated into the article. Please see the attachment.

Sincerely,

Gabriela Kurešová

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors made good revisions and explanations according to the comments in the first reviewing, while it is still need to be modified.

1. In line 90 in the clear version “round water “should be “groundwater”.

2. It is still unclear how the "water balance" in the fourth subgraph in Figure 4 in the clear version be calculated. According to Formula (2) on page 12 of Reference [22], ET = I + P − RO − DP + CR ± ∆SF ± ∆SW，where, rainfall (P), surface runoff (RO), deep percolation (DP), water transported upward by capillary rise (CR) and horizontal flow in change in the root zone(∆SF）can be ignored according to your experiments. So maybe “water balance” is ∆SW during the experiment period. ∆SW=ET-I. where, ET is the actual evapotranspiration of crops during experiment period, including the evapotranspiration of crops under water deficit.  I is the amount of irrigation in the period. ET should be measured or estimated. If it is estimated, it should be based on the formula (80) in Reference [22], which is, ET = kc ETo.  And Kc=Ks Kcb + Ke. I am not sure what “precipitation minus reference evapotranspiration” means in the paper. 

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

we appreciate the time and effort that you dedicated to providing feedback on our manuscript and are grateful for the insightful comments on and valuable improvements to our paper. Thanks for the thorough manuscript review. You are right, the description of the balance was simplified because we do not present data on soil moisture dynamics in the study. Data from winter wheat water deficit experiments on the same field in previous years, where we studied the root system and water distribution in the root zone, showed that most of the water consumed (based on apparent depletion) came from the layer up to 90 cm. The reference evapotranspiration Eto in Fig. 2 was calculated within programme using Allen et al. (and other sources). We added more details to the last paragraph in 2.2.

The revisions are marked up in the revised manuscript using the “Track Changes” function.

 

Sincerely

 

Gabriela Kurešová

Reviewer 2 Report

关于HI，既然你说研究的目的不包括HI，建议在摘要和3.2的标题中删除它。

关于数据格式，还是建议使用统一格式。请调整表3中的数据格式或调整表4和表5中的数据格式以保持一致。

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

we appreciate the time and effort that you dedicated to providing feedback on our manuscript and are grateful for the insightful comments on and valuable improvements to our paper.

The revisions are marked up in the revised manuscript using the “Track Changes” function.

 

Sincerely,

 

Gabriela Kurešová

 

 

Reviewer 4 Report

Thanks to the authors for responding to comments and observations and making appropriate modifications to the manuscript.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

 

we appreciate the time and effort that you dedicated to providing feedback on our manuscript and are grateful for the insightful comments on and valuable improvements to our paper.

 

Sincerely,

 

Gabriela Kurešová