Mitigating against Sclerotinia Diseases in Legume Crops: A Comprehensive Review
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The present review is an interesting paper.
I would like recommend some suggestions.
The recommendations are found in the attached file.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Professor, Editor-in-Chief
Subject: Submission of Revised manuscript: agronomy-2035194
Dear editor & reviewers,
We are much thankful to you for your efforts in making our manuscript more refine. We appreciate the reviewer’s comments and have taken them to heart during this revision process. All the points raised by reviewer are essential to insert for improving the structure and clarity of the work. The changes in the manuscript are made with red colour. We also added 23 references for new contents in a new reference list.
And if you feel that we still need to amend it further, please inform us we would love to do that.
Once again, thank you so much for spending your precious time in reviewing this manuscript.
All suggestions/comments of the reviewers are addressed in the text with red colour along with some explanation given below
Reviewers' comments:
Reviewer #1
The present review is an interesting paper. I would recommend some suggestions:
Response: Respected reviewer, we are thankful to you for your kind remarks. We suggestions are keen to improving the quality of the manuscript.
1) Firstly, I would like to draw the attention of the authors that there are some typographical errors in the manuscript, so the authors need to correct them in the revised manuscript (e.g. Pseudimonas syringae …correct form is Pseudomonas syringae; use square brackets for References; both forms appear in the manuscript: square brackets and open brackets: [29, 34-40); (12-15]; (16-17]; (19- 20]; (73-74]).
Response: Respected reviewer, we are thankful to you for drawing our attention to them. They are rectified.
2) The title should be more attractive for readers and related to the scope of the review.
Response: Thank you. Title has been revised as per your suggestion. The current title is “Mitigating against Sclerotinia diseases in Legumes Crops: A Comprehensive Review”
3) Abstract needs to be rewritten, please highlight the novelty of this review and why now.
Response: Thank you very much, we have revised this section. Please see page # 1 (line 12-23).
4) Conclusions and Future Perspectives - this section needs to be improved with more relevance related to this paper’s aim. It has a general character but should be more focused.
Response: Thank you very much, we have revised this section. Please see page # 11 (line 326-345).
5) Include the table of content in the revised manuscript.
We have listed the table of content as follow according to the revised version.
Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………………1
- Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………..1
- Sclerotinia sclerotiorum development and infection Process……………………….…………..2
2.1 Sclerotia, its development and survival……………………………………………………..2
2.2 Sclerotinia sclerotiorum infection process…………………………………….……………3
- Sclerotinia Disease Occurrence and Yield Losses Caused in Legume Crops …….……………3
3.1. Pathogens and Host Species………………………………………………..………………3
3.2. Yield Losses and Other Negative Effects by Sclerotinia spp……………………………….4
- Response of legume crops to Sclerotinia Sclerotiorum Infection……………………………….6
4.1. Plant Symptoms ……………………………………………………………..……………..6
4.2. Physio-biochemical Performance to Sclerotinia Sclerotiorum Infection…….…………….6
- Control Strategies for managing Sclerotinia Sclerotiorum Infection………….………………..6
5.1. Biological Control of Sclerotinia Diseases in Legumes…………………..………………..6
5.2. Genetic Improvement of Host Resistance to S. sclerotiorum……………………………..10
5.3. Chemical Control……………………………………………..…………………………..10
- Conclusion and Future Perspective………………………………..…………………………..11
Figure 1 Infection process S. sclerotiorum ………….……………………………………………3
Table 1 Sclerotinia spp, disease cause and yield losses estimated in legumes……………………5
Table 2 Biocontrol agents used in controlling S. sclerotiorum in crops…………………………..8
6) Add the list of acronyms or abbreviations.
Thanks. We have checked and revised the acronyms or abbreviations in the text. The rest ones are as follow.
BCAs: biological control agents
OA: oxalic acid
SDHIs: succinate dehydrogenase inhibitors
SMs: secondary metabolites
7) The authors need to add the graphical representation figure and explanation of the publication trend (2000-2020) in the field of “Occurrence and Control of Sclerotinia diseases in Legumes Crops”.
We appreciate your good idea. We tried to search for the literatures related to “Occurrence and Control of Sclerotinia diseases in Legumes Crops”. However, the paper numbers is not big enough to compare the changes or trends during 2000-2020, so we don’t mention the content in the manuscript.
We also want to bring to your notice that, apart from the concerns raised by the reviewers, we also read the whole manuscript and did some minor correction on the English. Again, there has been major revision in the references.
Moreover, we would like to acknowledge that the learned comments of the reviewer have enhanced the quality of the paper immensely. We are looking forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely yours,
Mr. Augustine Antwi-Boasiako & Prof. Tuanjie Zhao
Reviewer 2 Report
Review of any biotic or abiotic stress factor in agriculture have great importance. Pests and diseases causing significant economic loss for this reason those possibilities that could help the prevention are important.
Numbers of cited literatures are high enough but for a comprehensive review, while I think the length of the paper would be increased. There is no information about the environmental factors that would promote the infection of the sclerotinia while it would be important to understand for the prevention. In addition, figures are missing, showing the anatomy of the pathogen, factors or process of inoculation. Infection have certain symptoms on plant species which would also be important to show.
Text also should be double checked, in some cases latin names are included while some of them are missing, text style is not uniform along the manuscript. Some of expressions are should be checked: “learning machines”, “cultivar practices”, “recent students have identified…”. There are several redundant sentence along the paper.
I suggest a major review on the paper, including more chapters about history of the pathogen, environmental factors and biological process of the infection, symptoms, anatomy and systematics of the Sclerotinia.
Author Response
Dear Professor, Editor-in-Chief
Subject: Submission of Revised manuscript: agronomy-2035194
Dear editor & reviewers,
We are much thankful to you for your efforts in making our manuscript more refine. We appreciate the reviewer’s comments and have taken them to heart during this revision process. All the points raised by reviewer are essential to insert for improving the structure and clarity of the work. The changes in the manuscript are made with red colour. We also added 23 references for new contents in a new reference list.
And if you feel that we still need to amend it further, please inform us we would love to do that.
Once again, thank you so much for spending your precious time in reviewing this manuscript.
All suggestions/comments of the reviewers are addressed in the text with red colour along with some explanation given below
Reviewer #2
Review of any biotic or abiotic stress factor in agriculture have great importance. Pests and diseases causing significant economic loss for this reason those possibilities that could help the prevention are important.
Response: Respected reviewer, we are thankful to you for your kind remarks.
1) Numbers of cited literatures are high enough but for a comprehensive review, while I think the length of the paper would be increased. There is no information about the environmental factors that would promote the infection of the sclerotinia while it would be important to understand for the prevention. In addition, figures are missing, showing the anatomy of the pathogen, factors or process of inoculation. Infection have certain symptoms on plant species which would also be important to show.
Response: Thank you. The key points raised are well noted. A section on “Sclerotia of S. sclerotiorum, its development and survival” is added. Also, a figure on the Infection process of S. sclerotiorum is added. Please kindly see page # 2-3 (line 75-123) .
Information on the symptoms is available under section 4. Please kindly see page # 6 (line 179-186)
2) Text also should be double checked, in some cases latin names are included while some of them are missing, text style is not uniform along the manuscript. Some of expressions are should be checked: “learning machines”, “cultivar practices”, “recent students have identified…”. There are several redundant sentences along the paper.
Response: We have corrected them. Thank you.
Latin for lupin is added to the text as “Lupinus albus”. Please kindly see page # 4 (line 141)
“learning machines” is changed to “machine learning”. Please kindly see page # 11 (line 324)
“recent students” is changed to “current studies”.
3) I suggest a major review on the paper, including more chapters about history of the pathogen, environmental factors and biological process of the infection, symptoms, anatomy and systematics of the Sclerotinia.
Response:
Thank you. Data on the environmental factors and biological process of the infection are essential, however, there is extensive data available so we decided to remain silent on it. For instance, a recent review by Reich & Chatterton, 2022 (https://doi.org/10.1111/ppa.13643) discussed the environmental component in details. Here we only mentioned the importance of some environmental factors as showed in page # 2 (line 82-86).
We organised more information on the classification, infection and some characters of the pathogen in section 2-4. Please kindly see page # 3-4 (line 125-146) for classification, line 102-118 for infection process. For plant symptoms kindly see page 6 (line 179-186).
We also want to bring to your notice that, apart from the concerns raised by the reviewers, we also read the whole manuscript and did some minor correction on the English. Again, there has been major revision in the references.
Moreover, we would like to acknowledge that the learned comments of the reviewer have enhanced the quality of the paper immensely. We are looking forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely yours,
Mr. Augustine Antwi-Boasiako & Prof. Tuanjie Zhao
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript entitled “Occurrence and Control of Sclerotinia Diseases in Legumes Crops: A Comprehensive Review” it well organized. It consists of five sections and two tables. The references (158 in total) were generally properly selected and cited; however, as many as 19 of them were published in the 20th century, including those addressing the taxonomy of the genus Sclerotinia. The results of this study can be useful for students and young researchers dealing with legume diseases.
Section 1 (lines 27-48) is appropriate, but it presents well-known facts and the data are not new.
L 48: It should be “Sclerotinia sclerotiorum”
Section 2:
L 51: Please provide full and current taxonomy of the genus Sclerotinia.
L 51, 52: Does the genus Sclerotinia really include as many as 250 species? Only five species were mentioned in the manuscript.
L 55, 56: Font size and color should be corrected.
L 62, 91: “Sclerotinia” should be italicized.
L 66: Provide the scientific (Latin) name of “lupin”
L 67: It should be “Sclerotinia sclerotiorum”
L 87-89: The sentence: “The leguminous crops are key in agricultural… range of 20 – 40% which are twice or thrice of other crops (barley and wheat) [47].” repeats the information included in the Introduction.
L 107: It should be “…of Sclerotinia species in lupins,…”
Table 1. It should be “Sclerotinia spp.,………………….. “ in the Table caption.
Section 3: This section is rather general and presents common knowledge.
L 145: “S. sclerotiorum” should be italicized.
Section 4: This section is written in a rather chaotic manner, and only a few references to Table 2 are made. For instance: the text in L 180-187 describes microorganisms isolated from legume plants, but used for the protection of other plants; the text in L. 190-194 describes the efficacy of plant extracts in legume protection.
L 154-157: The introductory remarks are unnecessary.
L 182: It should be “Proteus species”
L. 183: Please define “pv”.
L. 165, 173: It should be “Trichoderma spp.”
Table 2: “and, &, sp.” should not be italicized.
L. 225, 226: The sentence “The ideal………….[137].” is unnecessary.
L.234: The active substances thiophanate methyl and prothioconazole have been banned in Europe.
L.249: Please correct the spelling error in the name of the active substance.
Please correct errors in the cited literature: references No. 33, 37, 42, 43, 50,51, 52, 53, 79, 87,93 and 108.
Author Response
Dear Professor, Editor-in-Chief
Subject: Submission of Revised manuscript: agronomy-2035194
Dear editor & reviewers,
We are much thankful to you for your efforts in making our manuscript more refine. We appreciate the reviewer’s comments and have taken them to heart during this revision process. All the points raised by reviewer are essential to insert for improving the structure and clarity of the work. The changes in the manuscript are made with red colour. We also added 23 references for new contents in a new reference list.
And if you feel that we still need to amend it further, please inform us we would love to do that.
Once again, thank you so much for spending your precious time in reviewing this manuscript.
All suggestions/comments of the reviewers are addressed in the text with red colour along with some explanation given below
Reviewer #3
The manuscript entitled “Occurrence and Control of Sclerotinia Diseases in Legumes Crops: A Comprehensive Review” it well organized. It consists of five sections and two tables. The references (158 in total) were generally properly selected and cited; however, as many as 19 of them were published in the 20th century, including those addressing the taxonomy of the genus Sclerotinia. The results of this study can be useful for students and young researchers dealing with legume diseases.
Response: Respected reviewer, we are thankful to you for your kind remarks.
1) Section 1 (lines 27-48) is appropriate, but it presents well-known facts and the data are not new.
Response: We acknowledge this as very helpful advice to improve the quality of the paper. There are many papers published recently. We have tried our best to make some amendments according to your opinion. Please see page # 1&2, (line 36-64).
L 48: It should be “Sclerotinia sclerotiorum”
Response: “S. Sclerotiorum” changed to “Sclerotinia sclerotiorum”.
Section 2:
L 51: Please provide full and current taxonomy of the genus Sclerotinia.
Added: Sclerotinia sclerotiorum (Lib.) de Bary. Please see page # 3 (line 126-127).
L 51, 52: Does the genus Sclerotinia really include as many as 250 species? Only five species were mentioned in the manuscript.
Response: No. Thanks for bring this to ours notice. We have deleted the description.
L 55, 56: Font size and color should be corrected. Sclerotinia sclerotiorum (Lib.) de Bary
Response: Thanks. This is corrected throughout the whole manuscript.
L 62, 91: “Sclerotinia” should be italicized.
Response: “Sclerotinia” changed to “Sclerotinia”.
L 66: Provide the scientific (Latin) name of “lupin”
Latin for lupin is added to the text as “Lupinus albus”. Please kindly see page # 4 (line 141).
L 67: It should be “Sclerotinia sclerotiorum”
Response: “S. sclerotiorum” is replaced with “Sclerotinia sclerotiorum”.
L 87-89: The sentence: “The leguminous crops are key in agricultural… range of 20 – 40% which are twice or thrice of other crops (barley and wheat) [47].” repeats the information included in the Introduction.
Responses:
Deleted: The leguminous crops are key in agricultural production and their seeds protein content are within the range of 20 – 40% which are twice or thrice of other crops (barley and wheat) [47].
L 107: It should be “…of Sclerotinia species in lupins,…”
Responses: Thanks for the correction.
“… Sclerotinia species in lupins,…” is corrected as “…of Sclerotinia species in lupins,…”
Please kindly see page # 4 (line 173-174).
sclerotiorum Table 1. It should be “Sclerotinia spp.,………………….. “ in the Table caption.
Response: “Sclerotinia spp” is changed to “Sclerotinia spp”. Please kindly see page # 5.
Section 3: This section is rather general and presents common knowledge.
Response: Thanks for bring this to ours notice. We have revised it. Please kindly see page # 4 (line 168-174).
L 145: “S. sclerotiorum” should be italicized.
Response: “S. sclerotiorum” change to “S. sclerotiorum”.
Section 4: This section is written in a rather chaotic manner, and only a few references to Table 2 are made. For instance: the text in L 180-187 describes microorganisms isolated from legume plants, but used for the protection of other plants; the text in L. 190-194 describes the efficacy of plant extracts in legume protection.
Response: Respected reviewer, we are thankful to you for your kind remarks. We have tried our best to revise the manuscript in an organized manner and making references to Table 2. Please kindly see page # 8.
Deleted: A number of bacteria strains present in nodules of legumes are showing evidence of promoting resistance in plants by limiting pathogen growth. For instance, in tomatoes, Proteus species (nodule-associated bacterial strain) isolated from soybean has antagonistic effects on bacterial (Pseudomonas syringae pv and Clavibacter michiganensis subsp. michiganensis) than fungal pathogens (S. sclerotiorum and Rhizoctonia solani) in tomatoes [97]. Similarly, Micromonospora strains from alfalfa nodules limits leaf infection in tomatoes by the fungus Botrytis cinerea [98]. Plants extracts (Moringa oleifera, Cinnamomum zeaylanicum) and organic compounds (amino acids derivatives) have inhibitory effects above 53% subject to the S. sclerotiorum strains and the environments [99].
L 154-157: The introductory remarks are unnecessary.
Response: Thanks for this correction.
Deleted: A number of strategies are adopted to best manage the disease. It involves use of biological agents, host resistance, fungicides, and cultural practices (use of healthy plants, varying planting dates, rotating crops, modifying planting density) [67, 80, 81]. In most cases, an integrated approach is used in controlling the Sclerotinia disease.
L 182: It should be “Proteus species”
Response: The section is deleted.
- 183: Please define “pv”.
Response: Thanks. The section is deleted.
- 165, 173: It should be “Trichodermaspp.”
Response: “Trichoderma spp” is changed to “Trichoderma spp.”. Please refer to page 8 Table 2.
Table 2: “and, &, sp.” should not be italicized.
Response: “species &” is changed to “species &”. Please refer to Table 2.
- 225, 226: The sentence “The ideal………….[137].” is unnecessary.
Response: “The ideal method to reduce fungicide application is the use of cultivars resistant to S. sclerotiorum” is modified as “The use of cultivars resistant to S. sclerotiorum will reduce dependence on fungicide application”. Please kindly see page # 10 (line 289-290)
L.234: The active substances thiophanate methyl and prothioconazole have been banned in Europe.
Response: Thanks for sharing.
L.249: Please correct the spelling error in the name of the active substance.
Response: They are all checked.
Please correct errors in the cited literature: references No. 33, 37, 42, 43, 50,51, 52, 53, 79, 87,93 and 108.
Response: Thanks for bring these errors to our notice. They are all corrected. Please kindly see page # 12-17 (line 368-760)
We also want to bring to your notice that, apart from the concerns raised by the reviewers, we also read the whole manuscript and did some minor correction on the English. Again, there has been major revision in the references.
Moreover, we would like to acknowledge that the learned comments of the reviewer have enhanced the quality of the paper immensely. We are looking forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely yours,
Mr. Augustine Antwi-Boasiako & Prof. Tuanjie Zhao
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors did significant improvement on the manuscript and included missing parts and figures. I accept in present form.
