Application of WOA–SVR in Seed Vigor of High-Voltage Electric Field Treatment on Aged Cotton (Gossypium spp.) Seeds
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The present paper is an original article regarding the high-voltage electric field treatments of seed for improving seed vigor. It is an important work, that could be helpful to researchers in food industry.
This paper conducted high-voltage electric field treatment on aged cotton seeds and germination experiments, then calculated the germination indexes. Support vector regression (SVR) was used to establish a seed vigor prediction model for high-voltage electric field seeds treatment, and the whale optimization algorithm was used to optimize the parameters of the SVR model. The optimized hybrid WOA-SVR model predicted the optimal comprehensive germination index of aged cotton seeds to be 329.363, the optimal high-voltage electric field dosage was 3.64 kV/cm × 99.36 s, the frequency was 1.389 Hz. Difference between experimental and predicted comprehensive germination index of the aged cotton seeds was about of 4.37%.
The paper is well organized and easy readable.
The Introduction could be improved because there are more recent references to results of this type of seeds treatment. For example, Marcek et al., Plants, 2021
The paper does not have the Conclusions section to summarize the important results of this work. But, in my opinion, the Discussions are the Conclusions of this paper.
Others observations:
Please specify from the beginning of the paper all the abbreviations used in the text!
Introduction – When quoting a paper, specify the main author et al. if there are several authors of the respective work.
As a result…
Line 35- “Xu” might be wrote like Xu et al.
Line 38- “ Lynikieney” might be wrote like Lynikieney et al.
Line 41-42- “Patwardhan” might be wrote like Patwardhan et al.
Line 48- “Bao” might be wrote like Bao and Ma
Line 51- “Yan” might be wrote like Yan et al.
Line 55- “Chen” might be wrote like Chen et al.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Editor of the journal of Agronomy,
Thank you for inviting me to review the article entitled with" Application of WOA-SVR in seed vigor of high-voltage electric 2 field treatment on aged cotton (Gossypium spp) seeds" The idea of ​​the research is good, but it may need a lot of data in order for the study to be complete. First - the authors used one type of cotton and did not specify its type.
Second - that the authors used electric current and studied its effect on the germination process only, and they had to study the physiological, biological and chemical changes on the resulting seedlings.
Third - another plant had to be used as a control, and it was known to be sensitive to electric current, and to compare the percentage of germination with the cotton plant. Have authors ever used the magnetic field and studied its effect on germination, because the magnetic field affects the water content inside the seeds, and then it will have a significant impact on the germination rate. Finally, the authors should consider the effect of electric current on plant height, number of flowers, and weight of cotton produced, and effect of electric current on textile type and quality of cotton produced.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper is devoted to the important topic, however, it is written in a careless way and needs a very deep revision.
Remarks:
1. Table 2 and Table 3 do not contain statistical scattering of the reported experimental results. This is a very bad methodological mistake and it should be corrected under revision.
2. I do not think that the germination index may be established with an accuracy of four significant figures (!?), as it it reported in Table 3. Again, this is a very bad methodological mistake.
3. In the text "the germination test of the aged cotton seeds treated by the HVEF was carried out and compared with CK, the germination rate of the seeds increased by 43.17%, the germination potential increased by 18.81%, the germination index increased by 28.90%, and the vitality index increased by 48.13%." I do not think that an accuracy four significant figures, as it appears in the text, is justified.
4. What is the impact of the applied voltage on the surface of the cotton seeds? See: Drori E. et al. Interaction of cold radiofrequency plasma with seeds of beans (Phaseolus vulgaris),Journal of Experimental Botany, V. 66, (13), 2015, pp, 4013–4021.
5. Abbreviation SVR appears in the abstract and it is not defined.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
recommendation
Application of WOA-SVR in seed vigor of high-voltage electric 2 field treatment on aged cotton (Gossypium spp) seeds
In this work the cotton seeds were treated by the pulsed high-voltage electric field (HVEF) for improving seed vigor. The methods of variance analysis and regression analysis based on data statistics were generally used to construct the optimal electric field dose prediction. The electric intensity, frequency and treatment time were taken as Input variables of support vector regression (SVR) to establish the prediction model of the seed comprehensive germination index.
There is carried out a very large amount of experimental work and careful analysis of data, authors contribute in methodology, software, formal analysis and visualization, so that the work became of great importance for specialists and the general public. The paper consists of five figures and four tables, cites forty papers on topic and merit for publication after minor changes:
- In the Abstract in line 17there is the full name missing but there is only abbreviation form for SVR
- In Figure one the word Figure should be written in bold.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript has been revised accordingly
