The Crop Production Capacity of Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.)—A New Field Crop for Russia in the Non-Chernozem Zone of Moscow’s Urban Environment

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This manuscript reported an interesting result. I think the experiments and the data presentation are sound. The research problem has been well resolved and discussed.

Minor points

1.      Where did authors get the seeds of five quinoa cultivars?

2.      Average rainfall and temperature during quinoa season should be added.

3.      Distribution of rainfall during the four seasons should be shown, as it has significant effects on crop growth.

4.      There were no statistical results for yield composition in Table 4.

5.      Statistical results must be added in Table 5.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

On behalf of ourselves and the co-authors, we thank you for your appreciation of our manuscript and for your valuable comments and questions. We are confident that your comments and corrections will make better our manuscript. We tried to significantly improve the manuscript after resubmitting. Corrections are made in the text and highlighted in color.

Remark 1. Where did authors get the seeds of five quinoa cultivars?

Response 1: Thank you for your valuable comments. We agree with the comments and corrected in the resubmitted text of the manuscript. We have supplemented the seed origin of five quinoa cultivars in the text (lines 439-443) and in table 1 (445).

Remark 2. Average rainfall and temperature during quinoa season should be added.

Response 2: Thank you for your valuable comments. In Supplement 1, we presented more detailed meteorological data, including average rainfall and temperature by decade during quinoa growing seasons.

Remark 3. Distribution of rainfall during the four seasons should be shown, as it has significant effects on crop growth.

Response 3: Thank you for your valuable comments. In Supplement 1, we presented more detailed meteorological data, including average rainfall and temperature by decade during quinoa growing seasons.

Remark 4. There were no statistical results for yield composition in Table 4.

Response 4: We performed statistical analysis in the table 4 The table 4 shows mean values ± standard errors at α = 0.05 according to the ANOVA test.

Remark 5. Statistical results must be added in Table 5.

Response 5: We performed statistical analysis in the table 5 The table 5 shows mean values ± standard errors at α = 0.05 according to the ANOVA test.

Additionally, we used the MDPI service to improve English throughout the manuscript.

Once again, we are so grateful for your review and valuable comments. In addition, we also send a resubmitted Word document with your and other reviewers' comments.

Best regards,

Marat Khaliluev

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors perfromed a field trial to check the adaptability of quinoa for Moscow's urban region. The qualities of this crop and the advantage that suppose the introduccion of the same in Russia are perfectly explained in the manuscript. The fiel trial was done correctly following the FAO instructions and the conclusions presented are totally valid.

However, there are some aspects that need to be improved.

The main defect of the manuscript is the discussion. It is limited. The authors compare their results with other field trials in just 4 lines. 

"Accordingly, A four-year field trial of various quinoa genotypes grown in the Non-Chernozem zone of Mos-cow's urban environment without applying chemical fertilizers and pesticides revealed comparable grain yields to some European and African countries in both favorable con-ditions [27,29] and abiotic stresses induced by drought and soil salinity [22,24]."

This section needs to be expanded.

The authors forget to put the standard deviation in many of the means presented in the results: in all of the text, in the means of table 2, in all dates of table 3...

Did the authors analyze statistically the dates of quinoa yield structure (Table 4), total protein content and amino acid composition of quinoa grains.(Table 5)? If so, this analysis should appear in tables 4 and 5. If not, this analysis should be performed

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

On behalf of ourselves and the co-authors, we thank you for your appreciation of our manuscript and for your valuable comments and questions. We are confident that your comments and corrections will make better our manuscript. We tried to significantly improve the manuscript after resubmitting. Corrections are made in the text and highlighted in color.

Remark 1. The main defect of the manuscript is the discussion. It is limited. The authors compare their results with other field trials in just 4 lines.

"Accordingly, A four-year field trial of various quinoa genotypes grown in the Non-Chernozem zone of Mos-cow's urban environment without applying chemical fertilizers and pesticides revealed comparable grain yields to some European and African countries in both favorable con-ditions [27,29] and abiotic stresses induced by drought and soil salinity [22,24]."

This section needs to be expanded

Response 1: Thank you for your valuable comments. We agree with the comments and corrected in the resubmitted text of the manuscript. We tried to expand the discussion (lines 686-698). Corrections are made in the text and highlighted in color.

Remark 2. The authors forget to put the standard deviation in many of the means presented in the results: in all of the text, in the means of table 2, in all dates of table 3...

Response 2: Thank you for your comments. In tables 3 and 4, we carried out statistical processing of the experimental data using Students and Duncan's Multiple Range Test. (lines 648, 636).

Remark 3. Did the authors analyze statistically the dates of quinoa yield structure (Table 4), total protein content and amino acid composition of quinoa grains.(Table 5)? If so, this analysis should appear in tables 4 and 5. If not, this analysis should be performed

Response 3: Thank you for your valuable comments. We performed statistical analysis in the tables 4 and 5. The tables 4, 5 shows mean values ± standard errors at α = 0.05 according to the ANOVA test.

Additionally, we used the MDPI service to improve English throughout the manuscript.

Once again, we are so grateful for your review and valuable comments. In addition, we also send a resubmitted Word document with your and other reviewers' comments.

Best regards,

Marat Khaliluev

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and parts for improvement can be found in the attached file.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

On behalf of ourselves and the co-authors, we thank you for your appreciation of our manuscript and for your valuable comments and questions. We are confident that your comments and corrections will make better our manuscript. We tried to significantly improve the manuscript after resubmitting. Corrections are made in the text and highlighted in color.

We have tried to improve English throughout the manuscript using MDPI service. We have supplemented the seed origin of five quinoa cultivars in the text (lines 439-443) and in table 1 (445). In Supplement 1, we presented more detailed meteorological data, including average rainfall and temperature by decade during quinoa growing seasons. We also supplemented the data on sowing scheme as well as sowing density in section 2.1 (lines 432-434). Additionally, we have supplemented the introduction section according to other reviewers' comments (lines 209-223).

Unfortunately, we were only able to analyze total protein content and amino acid composition of quinoa grains in 2020, because we did not have the necessary equipment before.

Once again, we are so grateful for your review and valuable comments. In addition, we also send a resubmitted Word document with your and other reviewers' comments.

Best regards,

Marat Khaliluev

Reviewer 4 Report

General Comments:

Dear Authors, thank you very much for interesting manuscript of adaptation of five cultivars of Quinoa in Russia, and particularly at the Urban area of Moscow.

Nevertheless, the manuscript should be improved in the following sections and the suggestions also are included in the PDF version.

Abstract:

Will be improved, after all corrections will be made in the manuscript sections.

Introduction:

This section must be improved. Quinoa was the interest in early time during the Soviet era, e.g. (Baer, K., 1839. ПредлоЖение о разведении квинои в северных областях Российской иМперии, 1839 год [Электронный ресурс] – ie. http://www.agroxxi.ru. Saint Petersburg, 25 pp., then after Vavilov.

If you mention previous works in Russia, you have to indicate and point out about introduced quinoa cultivars and provide seed yields - so, this will help you in the section of Result and Discussions.

Materials and Methods

This section is very interesting, practical and above all for the reader - in how your experiment can be repeated. Nevertheless, I see there are mssing information and lack of clarity.

Cultivars used in the experiment

Who provided the seeds?

From where you got the seeds? 

Origin information, passport data, growth data, length of growth (days) as per the bibliography mentions. This part, is very important, if you provide this information and then, later you compare with the behaviour, this will provide the information if the quinoa cultivar had similar number of days in the growth cycle or took more days.

Soil texture, chemical and physical data,, salinity, information are missing and how they are analysed?

Crop management and agronomy:

Density of sowing, number of plants per hectare, and information about the cultivars should be completed e.g. saponin, low saponin, sweet.

Experimental design, collection of data and statistical analysis:

This section is weak, there is no detailed information on the experimental design, and statistical analysis, e.g. there are linear model to analise multiyear trials. However, with only a simple Anova, the data cannot be compared.

Results and Discussion:

Up to day, there are information of those cultivars used in the experiment. Your results shouls compare with the data and information of these cultviars. Of course, photoperiod can affect growth and development, thus, you need to mention in materials and methods, the information of meteorological data of the location where the experiments was carried out.

Conclusions:

Some sentences need to be better explained. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

On behalf of ourselves and the co-authors, we thank you for your appreciation of our manuscript and for your valuable comments and questions. We are confident that your comments and corrections will make better our manuscript. We tried to significantly improve the manuscript after resubmitting. Corrections are made in the text and highlighted in color.

Remark 1. Abstract:

Will be improved, after all corrections will be made in the manuscript sections.

Response 1: Thank you for your valuable comments. We have tried to improve the Abstract section according to the comments of the reviewers.

Remark 2. Introduction:

This section must be improved. Quinoa was the interest in early time during the Soviet era, e.g. (Baer, K., 1839. ПредлоЖение о разведении квинои в северных областях Российской иМперии, 1839 год [Электронный ресурс] – ie. http://www.agroxxi.ru. Saint Petersburg, 25 pp., then after Vavilov.

If you mention previous works in Russia, you have to indicate and point out about introduced quinoa cultivars and provide seed yields - so, this will help you in the section of Result and Discussions.

Response 2: Thank you for your valuable comments. We have supplemented the introduction section according to remark (lines 209-223).

Remark 3. Materials and Methods

This section is very interesting, practical and above all for the reader - in how your experiment can be repeated. Nevertheless, I see there are mssing information and lack of clarity.

Cultivars used in the experiment

Who provided the seeds?

From where you got the seeds?

Origin information, passport data, growth data, length of growth (days) as per the bibliography mentions. This part, is very important, if you provide this information and then, later you compare with the behaviour, this will provide the information if the quinoa cultivar had similar number of days in the growth cycle or took more days.

Soil texture, chemical and physical data,, salinity, information are missing and how they are analysed?

Crop management and agronomy:

Density of sowing, number of plants per hectare, and information about the cultivars should be completed e.g. saponin, low saponin, sweet.

Experimental design, collection of data and statistical analysis:

This section is weak, there is no detailed information on the experimental design, and statistical analysis, e.g. there are linear model to analise multiyear trials. However, with only a simple Anova, the data cannot be compared.

Response 3: Thank you for your valuable comments. We have supplemented the seed origin of five quinoa cultivars in the text (lines 439-443) and in table 1 (445). In Supplement 1, we presented more detailed meteorological data, including average rainfall and temperature by decade during quinoa growing seasons. We also supplemented the data on sowing scheme as well as sowing density in section 2.1 (lines 432-434).

Statistical analysis:

Two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) (factors A and B were quinoa cultivar and year, respectively) were used (lines 578-579, Suppl. 2 and 3). In the tables we present mean values ± standard errors at α = 0.05 according to the ANOVA test. Means followed by the same letter are not significantly different at α = 0.05 according to the Duncan's multiple range test (for example tables 3 and 4). We performed statistical analysis in the tables 4 and 5. The tables 4, 5 shows mean values ± standard errors at α = 0.05 according to the ANOVA test.

Remark 4. Results and Discussion:

Up to day, there are information of those cultivars used in the experiment. Your results shouls compare with the data and information of these cultviars. Of course, photoperiod can affect growth and development, thus, you need to mention in materials and methods, the information of meteorological data of the location where the experiments was carried out.

Response 4: In Supplement 1, we presented more detailed meteorological data, including average rainfall and temperature by decade during quinoa growing seasons.

Remark 5. Conclusions:

Some sentences need to be better explained.

Response 5: Thank you for your valuable comments. We have tried to improve the conclusion section for a better understanding.

Unfortunately, we were only able to analyze total protein content and amino acid composition of quinoa grains in 2020, because we did not have the necessary equipment before.

Additionally, we used the MDPI service to improve English throughout the manuscript.

Once again, we are so grateful for your review and valuable comments. In addition, we also send a resubmitted Word document with your and other reviewers' comments.

Best regards,

Marat Khaliluev

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear Authors,

Many thanks for improving the first version. Nevertheless, still I found parts of the manuscript that requires improvement.

Abstract:

Still needs to be improved. The attached pdf manuscript is included with the suggestions.

Introduction:

Objectives of the research are not clear, and suggestions for improving are included in the pdf version of attached paper.

Materials and methods:

Information on quinoa cultivars should be precised. Suggestions for improving were included in the pdf manuscript.

Statistical analysis:

The statistical analysis is not appropiate. A genotype x environment (year) analysis should be performed in order to calculate stability. The analysis as iti is presented is not adequate as the authors had four years of experimentation.

Climatic information:

I would like to advise to present the information of environmental temperature in curves showing maximal, minimal and mean per year, so this will guide to the reader how was the behaviour in each year. Similar, information should be presented with precipiation, radiation and RH.

Nutritional profile analysis of seeds

this subsection should be arranged, and how was analysed proteins, aminoacids - which methods were applied, if results had per year, statistical analysis should be performed under (GEI) genotype environment interaction.

Results

Names of quinoa cultivars like Red Faro, corresponds to a genotype from Chile, and should be mentioned like this.

I did not find, information on saponin content - I wonder whether had variation per year. Saponin is at the moment a constraint for its adoption and upscaling of quinoa.

Discussions

Should compare with studies related with the same cultviars performed in other latitudes.

Conclusions:

The main objective of the research is to evaluate adaptability of introduced quinoa genotypes in a particular soil in Moscow. Thus, the conclusions should describe and state in which genotypes had better adaptation in terms of growth and development and seed yield.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We thank you for your appreciation of our manuscript and for your valuable comments and questions. We are confident that your comments and corrections will make better our manuscript. We tried to significantly improve the manuscript after resubmitting. We have changed the text of the manuscript according to your valuable comments in the PDF file.

Remark 1. Abstract:

Still needs to be improved. The attached pdf manuscript is included with the suggestions.

Will be improved, after all corrections will be made in the manuscript sections.

Response 1: Thank you for your valuable comments. We have changed the text of the manuscript as recommended.

Remark 2. Introduction:

Objectives of the research are not clear, and suggestions for improving are included in the pdf version of attached paper.

Response 2: Thank you for your valuable comments. We have supplemented the introduction section according to remark.

Remark 3. Materials and Methods

Information on quinoa cultivars should be precised. Suggestions for improving were included in the pdf manuscript.

Response 3: Thank you for your valuable comments. We have changed the text of the manuscript as recommended.

Remark 4. Statistical analysis:

The statistical analysis is not appropiate. A genotype x environment (year) analysis should be performed in order to calculate stability. The analysis as iti is presented is not adequate as the authors had four years of experimentation.

Response 4: In the resubmitted manuscript, we present the data of the tables 3, 4 and 5 after carrying out a correct statistical analysis. Two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) (factors A and B were quinoa cultivar and year, respectively) were used. In tables S1-S3 we present data from a two-way ANOVA, which indicates the influence of the factors «Genotype (A)», «Year (B)», as well as their interaction «Genotype х Year» (A х B). Multiple comparisons of means were performed using Duncan's test.

Remark 5. Climatic information:

I would like to advise to present the information of environmental temperature in curves showing maximal, minimal and mean per year, so this will guide to the reader how was the behaviour in each year. Similar, information should be presented with precipiation, radiation and RH.

Response 5:  The information on climatic conditions during the years of quinoa cultivation looks large-scale, so we decided to present it in a compressed form, in the form of a table 2. However, we presented more detailed meteorological data in the Figure S1, including average rainfall and temperature by 10-days period during quinoa growing seasons. We hope that the details in Fig. S1 will be more informative.

Remark 6. Nutritional profile analysis of seeds

this subsection should be arranged, and how was analysed proteins, aminoacids - which methods were applied, if results had per year, statistical analysis should be performed under (GEI) genotype environment interaction.

Response 6:  The Table 6 presents data of total protein content and amino acid composition of quinoa grains in 2020. Unfortunately, we were only able to analyze total protein content and amino acid composition of quinoa grains in 2020, because we did not have the necessary equipment before. Therefore, we cannot carry out two-way ANOVA test for genotype environment interaction. Total protein content did not differ significantly between quinoa cultivars according to one-way ANOVA test. We have supplemented this information in the table caption (line 619) and in the text (line 623-624). Nutritional Content Analysis of Quinoa Grains highlighted in a separate subsection in the Materials and Methods section.

Remark 7. Results

Names of quinoa cultivars like Red Faro, corresponds to a genotype from Chile, and should be mentioned like this.

I did not find, information on saponin content - I wonder whether had variation per year. Saponin is at the moment a constraint for its adoption and upscaling of quinoa.

Response 7:  Thank you for your valuable comments. We have made changes to the names of cultivars and its origin. We have made the appropriate correction in the text of manuscript, as well as in Table 1.

Studies on the content of saponins in quinoa seeds have not been conducted before, now we plan to study it, we hope it will be reflected in future publications. We are grateful to you for this recommendation as it is really significant.

Remark 8. Conclusions:

The main objective of the research is to evaluate adaptability of introduced quinoa genotypes in a particular soil in Moscow. Thus, the conclusions should describe and state in which genotypes had better adaptation in terms of growth and development and seed yield.

Response 8:  Thank you for your valuable comments. We improved Conclusion section by adding information about the most promising genotypes for cultivation in the Moscow region conditions (lines 659-665).

Once again, we are so grateful for your review and valuable comments.

Best regards,

Marat Khaliluev and Aleksandra Shitikova

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf