Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Overall this research is very interested, and presents impactful findings for growing a lucrative cash crop, Saffron. The authors do an excellent job at identifying nutrients that drive croms production in a controlled environment agriculture setting. These results are significant and quite exciting regarding the future of saffron production in Europe and Asia. The authors identify a great baseline to drive croms production and these results may increase future global saffron yields. A few major and minor comments follow.

Major Comments:

Lines 98-104: The authors mention salinity of irrigation water in dS/m in the context of soil based production. This section could be broken into multiple sentences. In this section’s current form it’s not clear from the context if the irrigation water is supplemented with fertigation or if this is simply reporting that brackish water (1-46 dS/m) inhibits saffron growth in the field. Please clarify these statements. The most confusing point is made from lines 102-104…which discusses Hoagland’s Solution. The comparison between field and greenhouse growth in this section needs clarification.

Lines 139, 150-152: The word “All” should be a number similar to lines 125-127. It’s difficult for the reader to know what “all means” given the amount of information the authors present between the description of the randomized block design, and the sampling schema. The use of “all” in the statistical analysis is also difficult to understand in the context of the experimental design. The authors do not indicate whether a power analysis was conducted to determine the statistical power of their test in the context of the experimental design. Please report power if available, there are a lot of factors examined from a relatively small sample size.

Minor Comments:

Lines 39-41: awkward phrasing. Maybe consider moving the list of health effects before “scientific evidences”.

Line 83 awkward phrasing with the clause: “On the other hand, Caser et al. (2019) [19] cultivated saffron on a soilless system on a glasshouse in Turin”. A clearer statement might be , “On the other hand, Caser et al. (2019) [19] cultivated saffron in Turin using a soilless system within a glasshouse.”

Line 106: the word “plantations” has slavery connotations in English, please revise to “farm fields” or something similar.

Line 162: “elevate EC” should be “elevated EC”

Line 179: Citation is missing “(Error! Reference source not found.)”

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

Point 1: Overall this research is very interested, and presents impactful findings for growing a lucrative cash crop, Saffron. The authors do an excellent job at identifying nutrients that drive croms production in a controlled environment agriculture setting. These results are significant and quite exciting regarding the future of saffron production in Europe and Asia. The authors identify a great baseline to drive croms production and these results may increase future global saffron yields. A few major and minor comments follow.

Response: We wish to express our gratitude to the reviewer for the thorough revision of the manuscript. we have addressed all arisen points both in the text and in the following responses.

Major Comments:

Point 2.

Lines 98-104: The authors mention salinity of irrigation water in dS/m in the context of soil based production. This section could be broken into multiple sentences. In this section’s current form it’s not clear from the context if the irrigation water is supplemented with fertigation or if this is simply reporting that brackish water (1-46 dS/m) inhibits saffron growth in the field. Please clarify these statements. The most confusing point is made from lines 102-104…which discusses Hoagland’s Solution. The comparison between field and greenhouse growth in this section needs clarification.

Response: We thank the reviewer for pointing this out and have now better clarified statements and references in the text (lines 97-107).

Point 3. Lines 139, 150-152: The word “All” should be a number similar to lines 125-127. It’s difficult for the reader to know what “all means” given the amount of information the authors present between the description of the randomized block design, and the sampling schema. The use of “all” in the statistical analysis is also difficult to understand in the context of the experimental design. The authors do not indicate whether a power analysis was conducted to determine the statistical power of their test in the context of the experimental design. Please report power if available, there are a lot of factors examined from a relatively small sample size.

Response: We have now rephrased the text in order to better clarify the statistics adopted (lines 142-147). The total number of corms available to sample per replicate was 6. To determination of concentration of N, P, K, Ca, and Mg in tissues (root, corms, and leaves), 2 plants were used per replication. And finally, to quantify the parameters in harvest (Total corms weight, total number of corms and corms diameter) were evaluated in 4 plants per repetition.

Minor Comments:

Point 4.

Lines 39-41: awkward phrasing. Maybe consider moving the list of health effects before “scientific evidences”.

Response: we have now corrected the text according to reviewer suggestion (line 40).

Point 5. Line 83 awkward phrasing with the clause: “On the other hand, Caser et al. (2019) [19] cultivated saffron on a soilless system on a glasshouse in Turin”. A clearer statement might be , “On the other hand, Caser et al. (2019) [19] cultivated saffron in Turin using a soilless system within a glasshouse.”

Response: we have now corrected the text according to reviewer suggestion (lines 82).

Point 6. Line 106: the word “plantations” has slavery connotations in English, please revise to “farm fields” or something similar.

Response: we have now corrected the text according to reviewer suggestion (lines 104).

Point 7. Line 162: “elevate EC” should be “elevated EC”

Response: we have now corrected the text according to reviewer suggestion (lines 168).

Point 8. Line 179: Citation is missing “(Error! Reference source not found.)”

Response: It was a reference to Table 2. We have now modified the text to include it.

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Suggestions:

• 82-83 (ref. 19) Specify that corms were cultivated in quartz sand.
• 128-129 please explain if you obtained the drainage solution sample from 7 days drainage collection or only after last irrigation.
• 157-159 Concerning medium and small size corms production, report results (in Ec 2.5...  13% more than EC2.0 and 18% more than EC3.0
  ) without writing " This differential effect was due to ..."

Typing errors:

• 179 REFERENCE SOURCE NOT FOUND
• 293 "temperature" vs "Temperature"
• 329 "morohophysiological" vs "morphophysiological"
• 332-333 your link doesn't work ; Try https://www.abc.es/espana/la-rica-espana/20150331/abci-azafran-castilla-mancha-aragon-201503261046.html

Author Response

Point 1.           Line 82-83 (ref. 19) Specify that corms were cultivated in quartz sand.

Response: we thank the reviewer for pointing this out and have now corrected the text according to reviewer suggestion. Line 82.

Point 2.           Line 128-129 please explain if you obtained the drainage solution sample from 7 days drainage collection or only after last irrigation.

Response: we thank the reviewer for pointing this out and have now corrected the text according to reviewer suggestion. Line 130.

Point 3.           157-159 Concerning medium and small size corms production, report results (in Ec 2.5...  13% more than EC2.0 and 18% more than EC3.0) without writing "This differential effect was due to ..."

Response: we thank the reviewer for pointing this out and have now corrected the text according to reviewer suggestion. Line 163-165.

Point 4. Line 179 REFERENCE SOURCE NOT FOUND.

Response: we thank the reviewer for pointing this out and have now corrected the text according to reviewer suggestion. Line 183

Point 5. Line 293 "temperature" vs "Temperature"

Response: we thank the reviewer for pointing this out and have now corrected the text according to reviewer suggestion. Line 296.

Point 6. Line 329 "morohophysiological" vs "morphophysiological".

Response: we thank the reviewer for pointing this out and have now corrected the text according to reviewer suggestion. Line 332.

Point 7. Line 332-333 your link doesn't work ; Try https://www.abc.es/espana/la-rica-espana/20150331/abci-azafran-castilla-mancha-aragon-201503261046.html.

Response: we thank the reviewer for pointing this out and have now corrected the text according to reviewer suggestion. Line 334-336.

 

Reviewer 3 Report

1. You wrote that the trial was carried from January until March 2012. In two months you obtained corms replication. This is strange. Did you transplant the corms after flowers emission? Sorry if I don't understand but probably it is better to clarify how you obtained new corms in 2 months.
2. Clarify better how many days after transplant you measured shoots length. I understand that you did it before the senescence but I want to know how many days after transplant.
3. Why did you not realize a figure for the regression equation between EC and corms diameter (line 175)? I think that with figure the results could be read faster making the result description more attractive.
4. You need to check the reference used for the period between line 177 and 179.
5. During result description from line 177 to line 202 there are not reference to the Tables or Figures in the text. Please check it. And check the interline space during this period, it is different than others.

Author Response

Point 1. You wrote that the trial was carried from January until March 2012. In two months you obtained corms replication. This is strange. Did you transplant the corms after flowers emission? Sorry if I don't understand but probably it is better to clarify how you obtained new corms in 2 months.

Response: we thank the reviewer for pointing this out and have now corrected the text according to reviewer suggestion. (lines 120-123). The experiment was conducted between September 2011 and March 2012. The corms were transplanted in September 2011, and the shoots started growing in January 2012, ending the cultivation on March 26, 2012. The monitoring of the experiment began with the growth of the shoots in January 2012.

Point 2. Clarify better how many days after transplant you measured shoots length. I understand that you did it before the senescence but I want to know how many days after transplant.

Response: we have now corrected the text according to reviewer suggestion (lines 142-143). Considering the day of the plantation (September 15) the measurement of the shoots was carried out at 190 DAT. The stems began their growth at the beginning of January 2012.

Point 3. Why did you not realize a figure for the regression equation between EC and corms diameter (line 175)? I think that with figure the results could be read faster making the result description more attractive.

Response: We agree with the reviewer comment and have now integrated a figure with the regression (Figure 1 line 180).

Point 4. You need to check the reference used for the period between line 177 and 179.

Response: we thank the reviewer for pointing this out. It was a non-working crosslink related to Table 2. We have now corrected the text accordingly.

Point 5. During result description from line 177 to line 202 there are not reference to the Tables or Figures in the text. Please check it. And check the intrerline space during this period, it is different than others.

Response: we have now corrected the text according to reviewer suggestion (lines 175-178).