Response to Selection for Reduced Anthesis-Silking Interval in Four Algerian Maize Populations

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors

1. The selected materials from four different provinces (BMT comes from Taghit (Bechar 117 province), TAO from Taourit (Bouïra), IGS from Ain Salah (Tamanras-118 set) and LOM from Ouled Mahmoude Lamtarfa (Adrar) may have natural selection pressure which has caused adapted phenotypes over a long due.

Over three cycles of selections do not make sense  to cause or improve the heritable element 

2. The current experiment lack in re-evaluating the materials in their original locations to testify the effect of selection cycles

On that basis, I recommend major revision and further additional season evaluations of materials in their original place of collection to find out genetic gain

Author Response

1. The selected materials from four different provinces (BMT comes from Taghit (Bechar 117 province), TAO from Taourit (Bouïra), IGS from Ain Salah (Tamanras-118 set) and LOM from Ouled Mahmoude Lamtarfa (Adrar) may have natural selection pressure which has caused adapted phenotypes over a long due.

Over three cycles of selections do not make sense  to cause or improve the heritable element 

R: I believe there is a misunderstanding. We have selected for reduced ASI and we have significantly reduced ASI in two populations, while selection had no significant response in the other populations. The purpose of this study was to assess the response to selection for ASI and the potential response in yield and other traits.

2. The current experiment lack in re-evaluating the materials in their original locations to testify the effect of selection cycles

On that basis, I recommend major revision and further additional season evaluations of materials in their original place of collection to find out genetic gain

R: Indeed, we have chosen these populations because they were adapted to their arid original locations; however, the purpose of a common breeding program is to release improved varieties for a target environment or environmental conditions; therefore, evaluations of breeding programs are made in the target environments. Evaluating improved populations in the original locations could make sense it this was a participatory breeding program, but this is not the case.

Reviewer 2 Report

Put up the corrections as mentioned in the report precisely

Review Report [Agronomy] Manuscript ID: agronomy-1089773

Author Response

Line 2 Shorten the title, no need to mention both treatments

R: We have removed the treatments from the title

L13 Specify regions

R: We have added “in the Mediterranean area” in the first sentence of the abstract

L17,18,19 Relook sentence

R: We have changed the sentence: “Three cycles of selection for reduced ASI were carried out in four populations under well-watered and drought conditions, and the breeding program was evaluated under drought and well-watered conditions.”

L21 TAO Populations, comma after low ASI

R: We have inserted a comma after ASI

L25 There can be optimal production

R: We have replaced “well-watered” by “optimal” and by “control” throughout the text.

And we have removed some words for reducing the number of words of the revised Abstract

L35 Reference

R: We have included the link “(http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QC Accessed February 1, 2021)” that provides updated data

L38 Shorten sentence

R: We have reduced the sentence to “Maize has more applications than any other cereal for food, feed, industrial applications, and bio-energy production”

L39 Use accomplish in place of and for

R: The sentences has been modified as explained in the previous question

L42 Probable logic

R: We agree

L47 Put up the reference for extent of impact of climate change in developing countries

R: At the end of the sentence, there are already four references that support that statement. If you request it, we could add also references 2, 6 and 9, which were previously mentioned above, but it might be a bit repetitive for supporting a statement that is generally accepted.

L50 Use is in place of are in the begining

R: done

L66 Substantiate with more references

R: We have added three references at the end of the sentence

L67 Use towards not toward

R: done

L70 Elaborate

R: We have modified the sentence to “In order to increase the target areas where an improved variety can be grown”

L71 Uses focuses

R: done

L75 Use existing in place of ancient variability is prevalent entity

R: We have replaced the word

L82 Remove was in the end

R: We have removed “was”

L88 After done screening and elites isolated

R: We have added “after doing some screening and isolation of elite genotypes”

L102 Specify whether the name of the population are abbreviations or else

R: We have inserted “whose official names are” because those are the actual names of the accessions

L106 Substantiate with evidence

R: As we cannot provide evidence of lack of reports, we have inserted “To the best of our knowledge” at the beginning of the sentence

L107 How you are presuming in general that ASI is reduced in each case

R: We are not presuming that ASI was reduced; actually, our objective is to check if ASI was reduced when we selected for reduced ASI

L117 Put up the coordinated of these locations to give idea about ecology

R: We have included the coordinates of the four locations

L121 Provide pedigree of WF9 and drought tolerance features

R: Actually, we did not use WF9, but A638, an inbred line from the family of WF9 that was released in Minnesota. As far as we know, the drought tolerance of these inbred lines was not published; therefore, I have added “(A. Ordás, personal communication) because I got that information from my former advisor A. Ordás

L127 Mention no. of days after sowing the treatments were induced

R: We have included “i.e. about 50 days after sowing”

L132 Put up the criteria for short ASI and vigour expression (scale etc)

R: We have included the definition of both traits

L156 Quantum of irrigation to be mentioned

R: We have added information about the amount of irrigation

L165 Height should have been up to base of tassel

R: That is one of the options. However, many researchers have been using plant height in breeding programs or evaluations and publishing articles with plant height measured up to the top of the tassel or up to the flag leaf.

L170 Use environments in place of water conditions

R: We have replaced water conditions by environments

L210 Use mean not means

R: done

L218 Support argument with data regarding plant aspect trait, write per se in italics

R: We have included the mean of each treatment for plan aspect

And we have change the format of “per se” in line 218 and elsewhere

L237 Use mean not means

R: done

L238 Well watered is a relative term use irrigated plot

R: We have replaced well watered by control throughout the text, because the drought treatment was also irrigated

L243 Explain or rewrite the statement

R: We have rewrote the sentence

L250 ASI by

R: We have indicated that selection was made for reducing ASI

L256 Both treatments

R: We have removed “water” from “water treatments”

L258 Use direct language

R: We have modified the sentence accordingly

L273 Use uniform terminology

R: We have used “genetic diversity” in both sentences

L284 With respect to what trait

R: We have modified the sentence to “for most agronomic traits”

L293 Avoid presumptions or back by data

R: We have indicated that the data are in table 1

L296 Reference

R: We have included three references

L298 Use expression in place of performance

R: As the word “performance” is repeated several times in those lines and we cannot know which one is confusing, we have replaced the word “performance” by more specific words in the first two paragraphs of discussion

L317 As a main

R: We have included “a main” in the sentence

L334 Present data of extreme responses

R: We do not have that data; therefore, we have change “extreme” by “drought”

L367 This criterion only supports drought escape

R: it might be, but we cannot demonstrate it

L375 Put up trait headings when you explain different traits, use a criterion not criteria

R: We have leaved only “silking” and changed “criteria” by “criterion”

L412 Algerian maize populations

R: We have added “populations”

L441 Put some references of relevance of proline or water content with respect to drought

R: That comment comes from Djemel et al (2018) which is reference [41]

L456,457,458 Put up lines derived from populations can be of more practical use

R: We have added “Also, a more practical approach consists on releasing inbred lines from the populations under drought conditions”

L460 The selection of populations be screened through phenotyping platforms

R: We have added “Finally, precise evaluations can be carried out in phenotypic platforms”

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

The paper entitled “Response to Selection for Reduced Anthesis-Silking Interval in Four Algerian Maize Populations Under Well-Watered and Drought Conditions” by Benchikh-Lehocine et al. investigates the response to selection for reduced Anthesis-Silking-Interval (ASI) in Algerian maize under drought and well-watered conditions. I consider that the topic covered by this manuscript is suitable for Agronomy journal. The paper submitted is generally well written and organized. I have only few minor observation concerning this manuscript, as follows:

1. I recommend that authors should pay more attention when using shortcuts such that these should be defined in their first appearance in the text.

-          Lines 20-23: What LOM, TAO, BTM and IGS refers to? The authors should write the entire name for a shortcut in its first appearance throughout the text. Considering the context, I understood that these refer to the four populations but you should specify clearly, maybe between blankets in Line 17 when you describe the experiment.

-          In Results, Table 1 and 2 and in Discussions Line 427, a series of shortcuts for the experimental variables appear (LOM_C1_s, LOM_C3_S etc) but these are not explained. Please provide their significance-their full name at their first appearance in the text.

2. I also recommend that authors should review their manuscript for minor spell checks and English corrections, as follows:

Lines 17-19: I recommend to rephrase this sentence trying to avoid using “well-watered and drought conditions” 2 times in a sentence-  “Four populations were subjected to three cycles of selection for reduced ASI under well-watered and drought conditions and evaluated under drought and well-watered conditions”

-          Line 250: “reduced ASI 0,26”- replace it with “reduced ASI to 0,26”

-          Line 282: “could be due” – please consider replacing this with “could be attributed” or “could be the result of”

3. Table 1- No statistic is provided- authors should introduce letters or asterisks for the statistical significance of the results achieved.

Author Response

Q1. I recommend that authors should pay more attention when using shortcuts such that these should be defined in their first appearance in the text.

-Lines 20-23: What LOM, TAO, BTM and IGS refers to? The authors should write the entire name for a shortcut in its first appearance throughout the text. Considering the context, I understood that these refer to the four populations but you should specify clearly, maybe between blankets in Line 17 when you describe the experiment.

R: LOM, TAO, BTM and IGS are the codes of the accessions; therefore, actually, they are populations. We have added “the populations” before LOM and TAO in the abstract. In introduction and materials and methods the word “populations” is already before the codes the first time they appear

-In Results, Table 1 and 2 and in Discussions Line 427, a series of shortcuts for the experimental variables appear (LOM_C1_s, LOM_C3_S etc) but these are not explained. Please provide their significance-their full name at their first appearance in the text.

R: We have added a foot note in table 1 explaining the meaning of C0, C1, C2 and C3 because the meaning of N and S was already explained. The codes LOM, TAO, BTM and IGS are not mentioned because, as explained in the previous comment, those are just accession codes. We have also added a sentence in discussion explaining the meaning of C1, C3 and S

Q2. I also recommend that authors should review their manuscript for minor spell checks and English corrections, as follows:

Lines 17-19: I recommend to rephrase this sentence trying to avoid using “well-watered and drought conditions” 2 times in a sentence-  “Four populations were subjected to three cycles of selection for reduced ASI under well-watered and drought conditions and evaluated under drought and well-watered conditions”

R: We have reviewed the text and made several changes, including the correction of the sentence in lines 17-19

-Line 250: “reduced ASI 0,26”- replace it with “reduced ASI to 0,26”

R: We have inserted “by” because it is not a reduction to 0.26 but by 0.26

-Line 282: “could be due” – please consider replacing this with “could be attributed” or “could be the result of”

R: we have replaced “due” by “attributed”

Q3. Table 1- No statistic is provided- authors should introduce letters or asterisks for the statistical significance of the results achieved.

R: We do provide the LSD at the bottom of each column. If you request the letters, we can include them, but the format of the table would be ruined

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Now paper draft has been improved