Influence of Temperature on the Development of Peach Fruit in a Subtropical Climate Region
and Róberson Pimentel 7Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This paper needs a lot of work to be acceptable for publication. Extensive English editing is recommended, there are syntax and other translation errors in the first sentence of the abstract. An external editor is suggested to improve readability.
Line 24: are you talking about actual genetic engineering or just improvement through crop breeding?
53: What do those studies that you cited say?
65-74: We need details on how these trees were grown.
Figure 1: the cut lines of the chart should not include the margins from the original Excel table.
81: ‘Okinawa’
82: What do you mean by ‘vegetative propagation’?
86-91: Please provide more detail on the sampling methodology for phenology data. Did you make one assessment per cultivar, or repeated measurements?
Section 2.3: The first sentence “The effect of temperatures…” is unclear. You also don’t need to show the GDD equation, it’s a standard measurement and your citation should be sufficient.
108-109: First, labels should be below tables. Second, you’re including data in the table (CA, CN) before you told us what it is and how you collected it. Also, SD should not be a separate column, just write “0.71±0.21” and define SD in the heading.
114: What previously marked branches?
120: Sentence is unclear. Line 126 sentence “Subsequently,…” is as well.
150: This model is unclear. Please relate the parameters to the data you collected as described in the methods.
Figure 3: Key is unreadable, font too small. What is your GDD representing? Accumulation since when? Break 3 a-d into separate tables for better readability.
171: Citation needed.
172: How did you determine your phases? By change in asymptote of the curve? Visually?
173: What do you mean by “heat requirement”? Is this the accumulated GDD from bloom until the time of collection? That isn’t a requirement, it’s an observation of the weather.
214: also reference the p-value of the models, for many, the model is non-significant. R2 means nothing in that case.
219-222: This paragraph doesn’t say much unless you better describe those papers in relation to the present study.
Table 4: same, too small to read.
234: ‘Biuti’ (be consistent with your single quotes around cultivar names) didn’t “show” anything, the model estimated CN.
238: ”…influence on final fruit size.” Citation needed
263: You only recorded this data in one year, under one temperature regime. That doesn’t support your conclusion, which would require replication across multiple years and weather conditions.
Author Response
I appreciate your suggestions and if accepted for publication, I will send it for English edition service.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript entitled “entitled “Influence of temperature on the development of peach fruit in a subtropical climate region” investigate the effect of temperature on the growth rate and final size of four different tropical peach cultivars. The authors moreover claim that the four cultivars assessed are different not only in mesocarp cell size but also the number of the cells making up the pulp.
The topic debated in the work presents some novelties but the manuscript is too descriptive. Maybe in the future the integration with molecular data can raise a higher scientific appeal (expression and genetic data on peach orthologous similar to the tomato FW2.2, FW11.3, OVATE, SUN etc.)
Nevertheless the data are nicely analyzed and the experiments are well documented and described.
Major points
1. The introduction is too short. Some essential reference regarding fruit development are missing and not discussed (Gillpasy et al 1993).
2. Lines 70-78 move to result section
3. Graph axis labels and symbols are too small and basically unreadable
4. How the GDD does influence the fruit quality. Do you measure °Brix, texture, TTA, total polyphenol accumulation, flavor? There is any correlation between organoleptic traits and fruit size?
5. How these data can be used as support for the breeding program?
6. Again, can you give some hints on how this study can contribute to future applications of new breeding techniques?
Author Response
The questions 1, 2 and 3 in attached!
4. How the GDD does influence the fruit quality. Do you measure °Brix, texture, TTA, total polyphenol accumulation, flavor? There is any correlation between organoleptic traits and fruit size?
The temperatures (GDD) influence the fruit quality, as described by Lopresti et al. (2014). However, these fruit-quality attributes (°Brix, texture, TTA, total polyphenol accumulation, flavor) were not evaluated. The organoleptic properties are related not only to fruit size, but also to its development stage.
5. How these data can be used as support for the breeding program?
According to Tanksley (2004) & Olmstead et al. (2007), the potential of final fruit size is strongly related to the genetic factor, especially the total number of cells in the fruit. Thus, in order to develop a peach breeding study aiming at the production of a cultivar with larger fruits, it is necessary to choose the cultivars whose fruit has a higher number of cells and a larger cell area.
6. Again, can you give some hints on how this study can contribute to future applications of new breeding techniques?
The characteristics inherent to fruit quality are of great importance to the consumer market. Therefore, more in-depth research should be carried out regarding the ultra-molecules of fruits; e.g. ultrastructural studies involving the use of confocal microscopy to examine these structures.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
This paper has been greatly improved since the first submission. I recommend a thorough reading and editing for English grammar, but the general scientific standards of the paper are now sound.
Reviewer 2 Report
I carefully assessed the new version of the paper entitled "Influence of temperature on the development of peach fruit in a subtropical climate region". Personally, I believe that the manuscript has been substantially improved. Moreover the authors addressed most of my concerns in a satisfactory manner.
