Cover Crops as Reservoirs for Young Vine Decline Pathogens

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

General comments:

The main objectives of the present manuscript were to surveyed native plants as well as commercial cover crop species to determine if they associate with Ilyonectria liriodendri, a widely distributed grapevine trunk pathogen. The manuscript is well written and structured. Abstract is informative and gave me direct idea of the obtained results. In introduction section, the authors are requested to update the old used references especially there are new published articles in the field of study. Material and methods contain details which help other researchers to follow. After reading the discussion section, I suggest the authors to not repeat some sentences were already mentioned in the introduction section.

Specific comments:

Line 115 are you inoculated by three isolate? If yes why?

Line 185 Root what this title mean?

Also line 209 sols what this mean?

Make sure that all scientific names in the References list are italics.

Please add the DOI for ALL the References.

Author Response

Thank you for all your comments! We have been able to address all your concerns, except one,  concerning the new references, which we were unable to find. Please see more detailed comments below, with our responses given by **:

Reviewer 1:

The authors are requested to update the old used references especially there are new published articles in the field of study.

**we have searched exhaustively for new references in this field - the idea of cover crops acting as pathogen spillover is relatively un explored. Thus this paper represents an even more contribution to the field! 

I suggest the authors to not repeat some sentences were already mentioned in the introduction section.

**REMOVED repetitive sentence

Specific comments:

Line 115 are you inoculated by three isolate? If yes why?

**We isolated with a combination of commonly found isolates in our region to maximize the chance that the overcrops would be susceptible to an isolate.

Line 185 Root what this title mean?

**Changed to “Abundance of Ilyonectria in roots”

Also line 209 sols what this mean?

**Chan ged to “Abundance of Ilyonectria in soil”

Make sure that all scientific names in the References list are italics.

**Edited

Please add the DOI for ALL the References.

**done

Reviewer 2 Report

Overall the manuscript is not very good written and structured. The main issues that I would like the authors to clarify concern:

1. the research methodology is not very clearly presented (e.g. the formula in row 124; were equal amounts of water used to irrigate the pots?; why was the soil in the container homogenized before the soil sampling to determine the degree of colonization)?

2. interpretation of results

In case of both figures the results in the text are expressed in copies per gram, but the scale of the figures is logarithmic. The values in the text do not correspond to those in the figures. Please explain or correct. In order to be able to compare the values obtained for the cover crops, I think it is necessary to show the values for the control crop (vines).

3. conclusion

Please rewrite, because in this part must be present the most relevant ideas of the research (which are the many benefits of the cover crops?). Also, please do not make references to other works in this part of the article.

 Generally, the authors should improve and correct technical/professional vocabulary. The scientific names in almost entire article are not italicized (e.g. family names in Table 1) or the spp (after microbial genera names, lines 17, 52,70, 71 etc ) are missing. The word BUCKWHEAT is written throughout the manuscript with the first letter capitalized (why?)

Furthermore, the manuscript several mistakes which should be double checked. Specific comments follow:

 Abstract

·                 line 9: Please replace truck disease with trunk disease

·                 lines 16, 46: Please deleate the free space (verify entire paper)

·                 line 17: insert spp after Ilyonectria – corrects throughout paper (spp. refer to the genera)

Introduction

·                 line 33:  Please insert space after (GTD)

·                 line 36:  Please insert genera before including Ilyonectria, Dactylonectria, and Cylindrodendrum

 Material and methods

·                 Table 1: in column 2 please add name after Binomial. Also, please decide if you will add after the scientific name the initial (not italicized, e.g. Trifolium michelianum Savi) or abbreviation which refers to the finder.

 Discussion

The information presented in the Discussion is very limited and does not cover all the results presented. This section needs to be completely rethought to highlight the novelty of the paper.

Conclusion

Should be rewritten because the information presented are spare and many results are not presented.

Author Response

Thank you for your careful assessment of our manuscript. Your suggestions substaintially improved the quality of our work. We were able to address all of your concerns, please see below (our response is given by **):

Reviewer 2

1. the research methodology is not very clearly presented (e.g. the formula in row 124; were equal amounts of water used to irrigate the pots?; 

**Yes, the formula in line 124 describes how we standardized inoculum.  Each plant was watered by hand with an equivalent amount of water to prevent excessive drainage. This has been edited. 

why was the soil in the container homogenized before the soil sampling to determine the degree of colonization)?

**THis was an error. It has been corrected to read: “Soil samples were collected from the pot after roots were removed.”

2. interpretation of results

In case of both figures the results in the text are expressed in copies per gram, but the scale of the figures is logarithmic. The values in the text do not correspond to those in the figures. Please explain or correct. In order to be able to compare the values obtained for the cover crops, I think it is necessary to show the values for the control crop (vines).

**Values were plotted as log values because the difference between non-colonized plants and colonized plants was too large to visualize on a normal scale.  In this way, we felt that reporting the true values in the text was more useful for readers to understand the range of values in our results.  We plotted background levels of the fungus for comparison because if the plant did not act as a host, we would still expect to see some positives in our analyses (the original inoculum levels). This served as a “Control” treatment for our study. Because our study aimed to test differences among common cover crop - there was no way to include a “crop” plant.  None of the pots contained vines. They contained only cover crop species.  We have significantly edited our methods to clarify our experimental design at the start of our methods (2.1)

3. conclusion

Please rewrite, because in this part must be present the most relevant ideas of the research (which are the many benefits of the cover crops?). Also, please do not make references to other works in this part of the article.

**Done

 Generally, the authors should improve and correct technical/professional vocabulary. The scientific names in almost entire article are not italicized (e.g. family names in Table 1)

**To our knowledge, only Genus and Species are italicized in publications.

 or the spp (after microbial genera names, lines 17, 52,70, 71 etc ) are missing. 

**Edited throughout

The word BUCKWHEAT is written throughout the manuscript with the first letter capitalized (why?)

**Edited. Also changed “Phacelia” to phacelia when used as a common name.

Furthermore, the manuscript several mistakes which should be double checked. Specific comments follow:

 Abstract

·                 line 9: Please replace truck disease with trunk disease

**done

·                 lines 16, 46: Please deleate the free space (verify entire paper)

**done

·                 line 17: insert spp after Ilyonectria – corrects throughout paper (spp. refer to the genera)

**done

Introduction

·                 line 33:  Please insert space after (GTD)

**Edited

·                 line 36:  Please insert genera before including Ilyonectria, Dactylonectria, and Cylindrodendrum

**Edited

 Material and methods

·                 Table 1: in column 2 please add name after Binomial. 

**We have this information included already.

Also, please decide if you will add after the scientific name the initial (not italicized, e.g. Trifolium michelianum Savi) or abbreviation which refers to the finder.

**removed authorities for clarity

 Discussion

The information presented in the Discussion is very limited and does not cover all the results presented. This section needs to be completely rethought to highlight the novelty of the paper.

**We have rewritten the discussion to highlight the novelty of our findings. We have cut most of the speculative and background information as it was not pertinent to our discussion.

Conclusion

Should be rewritten because the information presented are spare and many results are not presented.

**Done

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Editor,

in its present form, the manuscript is well readable, the ideas presented by the authors are easy to follow, and the new facts brought to the readers can be understandable.

The article could be accepted.