Introgression of Two Quantitative Trait Loci for Stripe Rust Resistance into Three Chinese Wheat Cultivars
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors,
your study is interesting and can enrich knowledge about marker assisted selection for stripe rust resistance in wheat. However, several improvements are possible. Details are given in the respective file uploaded.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
I have read the manuscript and have the following comments.
I find that the title is very general. I do not see any innovation in the title, it reads like a course project. Please rephrase.
Abstract. What is the objective of your research? What is the innovation?
Why did the authors choose the wheat line P9897 as the source of resistance?
Introduction. The literature on wheat stripe rust resistance is enormous and you have only used a very limited no. of references (mostly after 2013). Please use more references on the research of wheat stripe rust.
Lines 64-66. Authors state that molecular markers greatly improve the efficiency of the breeding process. This is a very general statement that does not convey any scientific meaning. Please report high-yielding wheat cultivars that have been developed and released with the utilization of molecular markers.
Please give more information and references on CYR34. When did it emerge, etc.
Figure 1. Sentence in the second text box does not read well. Please rephrase.
Lines 147-168. The information on agronomic trait evaluation is extremely limited.
How many F5 plants and F6 lines and parents did you evaluate in years 2017-2018 and 2018-2019? There is no information on one of the most important parts of the research which is the phenotypic evaluations.
What was the experimental design you used? What was the no. of treatments you used?
Did you plant the exact same design in both years?
How many rows did you plant? How many rows did you harvest? What was the plant density you used?
If the inter-row distance you used was 30 cm, this involves competition which bias the agronomic evaluation of the traits. Please discuss.
Did you end trim the plots?
The process of selection is not clear either. Please provide more clear information about how you selected the 114 F6 lines.
Lines 168-169 about the selection are vague. Please be more specific about what you did and how you selected the lines based on the four traits you mention.
Lines 264-268. The molecular markers used in this study had a genetic distance of greater than 1 cM. This is a problem since the probability of recombination between the gene and the marker is high.
I cannot access the importance of this study because the information on the phenotypic evaluation is very limited. Please note that your marker data is as good as your phenotypic data. Without accurate phenotypic data, the molecular data are not valid. You need to provide a lot more information on the phenotypic data and the selection process.
The second problem is the large genetic distance (>1cM) used in this study.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors attempted to increase the selection efficiency of wheat stripe rust resistance by using molecular markers. The idea of correct blending of conventional selection method with molecular marker selection really enhanced the selection efficiency and also give chance to find the new resistance gene either APR or other minor genes.
Though it looks like ordinary breeding program, the scientific selection of materials and methods are impressive. The results and discussion are correctly pitching the blend of both conventional and molecular part instead of usual showcase of molecular part alone.
I strongly recommend the authors to develop mapping population out of the selected line to find new QTL/Gen.
Author Response
Thank you for you review comments and suggestions.
Reviewer 4 Report
First of all, thank you for the opportunity to review this manuscript. I really liked the approach used for this research. However, I have some minor concerns.
a. You mentioned about unknown resistance genes. Please provide more explanation on how they are resistant. I guess phenotypic data is not just enough to confirm the resistance.
b. Some lines did not detect resistance QTLs of P9897, please mention those lines in the discussion as well.
c. I would suggest some minor grammatical and spelling checks as well.
Good luck!
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors,
the manuscript was improved but please read the comments (file attached) to the manuscript. A major review is necessary.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
English language and syntax need to be corrected in some sentences of the revised text (i.e., lines 180-187 do not read well). Please have a native English speaking person review the manuscript.
I still do not like the title, it does not convey any scientific meaning. I suggest the following title.
"Introgression of two QTL for stripe rust resistance into three Chinese Wheat cultivars".
The phenotypic evaluation is still not clear.
In addition, the authors mention that 10 plants were randomly selected for evaluation of agronomic traits. Random selection is not ideal for evaluating agronomic traits.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
