Different Summer and Autumn Water Deficit Affect the Floral Differentiation and Flower Bud Growth in Apricot (Prunus armeniaca L.)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a straightforward paper depicting the effect of water stress on flower development and xylem formation in apricot. The experiments were soundly designed, results and conclusions are clearly stated. Please see minor remarks within the text.

** I was wondering if the water stress treatments affected also flower abortion, pr abscission??

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

we sincerely thank you for your comments about our manuscript. We have carefully revised the manuscript according the suggestions. In our point-by-point response below, the reviewers’ comments are in black and our responses are in red. The modifications in the revised manuscript are reported in track change mode. We hope these modifications are acceptable to you.

Thank you again for your time and consideration.

Susanna Bartolini, Ermes Lo Piccolo, Damiano Remorini

Line 35: Do you mean molecular regulation? Please clarify.

Response: a sentence has been added at line 45-47 of the revised manuscript.

Line 44: Ref?

Response: a reference has been added and, as a consequence, the numbering of the references has been modified.

Line 55: Carbohydrates in the xylem?

Response: thanks for the observation. This is a misprint which has been erased.

Line 230: '…..and usually...' add is.....

Response: done, '…..and is usually...'.

Table 1: Shouldn't the values of this parameter be negative? What are the comparisons? control vs. treatment in each month? How about comparisons between the months?

Response: Yes, thanks for the correction, the negative sign was added. Thanks for your suggestion. However, the comparisons were done only between control and stressed. The comparison between months was not discussed because the gas exchange analyses were used to assess only the plant stress status in comparison to control plants.

Figure 4: Please add info on this photo too to clarify what we see

Response: a description has been added at line 339-340 of the revised manuscript.

**I was wondering if the water stress treatments affected also flower abortion, pr abscission??

Response: your question about the possible influence of water stress treatments on flower abscission is very intriguing. Although cv. Portici is generally characterized by a late appearance of flower bud anomalies, we sometimes noted symptoms related to the abscission layer formation at the bottom of floral primordium. This occurrence is typical of apricot cultivars with heavy problems of floral biology (i.e. ‘Stark Early Orange’). Our intention will be to quantify this important feature which may further affect the response of tree under water deficit.

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Reviewer 2 Report

Apricots are often considered to be undemanding plants. There are plantations in ecologically unsuitable areas as well, and the cropping technology of them is often neglected. However, the practice of recent decades has shown that all these conceptions are wrong. Economical cultivation can only be achieved in an optimal site of production, with a modern growing system and precise cropping technology. The basis of modern cultivation is to get to know the characteristics of the cultivated plants, which is only possible with scientifically based experiments. The basis of regular production of fruit trees is the optimal flower bud development, flowering, fertilization and fruit formation. If the right environmental conditions are not provided for this, there will be no proper crop. We already know a lot about the effects of temperature on flower bud development. However, many other environmental factors also influence this process, including sunlight, nutrients and water supply. We tend to forget about these. The article draws attention to the importance of water supply. It proves the effects of water supply on flower bud formation of an apricot cultivar by a scientific experiment. In the work modern methods were used, they were evaluated with scientific rigor, and the conclusions are correct. The results are presented in illustrative figures. The article is suitable for publication in the Agronomy in its present form.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

we sincerely thank you for your comments about our manuscript. Thank you again for your time and consideration.

Yours sincerely

Susanna Bartolini, Ermes Lo Piccolo, Damiano Remorini