Delayed Sowing Date Improves Rice Cooking and Taste Quality by Regulating the Quantity and Quality of Grains Located on Secondary Branches

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I have been finished to review the manuscript, which elucidate the physiological basis of physiochemical properties alteration and quantitative variation of SG and PG as well as their co-regulative effect on rice populational quality. However, it is required some revisions before recommending.

1. The regulation effect of sowing date on rice is less introduced in the introduction part, and the effect of sowing date on rice plant growth and development, resource utilization efficiency, yield and quality should be increased. Then point out the shortcomings of previous studies and the novelty of this study.

2.The daily climate data such as mean temperature, radiation, and precipitation from the transplanting of first sowing date to the maturity of last sowing date must added.

3. Sowing date adjustment is a complex agronomic decision. It depends on the crop variety, farming system, the crop succession, the temperature distribution during the crop growing season, and the rainfall characteristics. It is suggested to introduce whythesesowing dates were set up?
4. A lot of the results are just superficially descripted. The authors should summarize the main effect of sowing date.
5. In the discussion part, there are too many analyses of my own results, which are not well combined with previous research. It is recommended to refine my own analysis of results and discuss with the results of previous research.
6. Revise conclusion such that the results are no longer repeated.

Line 127, the sampling time lasted from 5 DAY to 45 DAY?

Line 443-444, 455, there are some formatting problems in the references.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer:
Major Comments: I have been finished to review the manuscript, which elucidate the physiological basis of physiochemical properties alteration and quantitative variation of SG and PG as well as their co-regulative effect on rice populational quality. However, it is required some revisions before recommending.

Response: Thank you for your work in process of reviewing the manuscript. Your comments are highly appreciated. We did our best to address the issues mentioned below. We have attached our revised manuscript as below.

1. The regulation effect of sowing date on rice is less introduced in the introduction part, and the effect of sowing date on rice plant growth and development, resource utilization efficiency, yield and quality should be increased. Then point out the shortcomings of previous studies and the novelty of this study.

Response: Thank you for your kindly suggestion. We have made some more description on the regulation of grain yield and quality in respond to sowing date treatments. In the resubmitted manuscript, we have stated the effect of sowing dates on meteorological parameters, grain yield, starch biosynthesis, enzyme activities, taste quality and texture quality of rice, as shown in line 44-55.

2. The daily climate data such as mean temperature, radiation, and precipitation from the transplanting of first sowing date to the maturity of last sowing date must added.

Response: Thank you for your kindly suggestion. We have added the daily climate data as Supplementary Figure 2 (Figure S2) in this revised manuscript (Below the main body of the resubmitted manuscript).

3. Sowing date adjustment is a complex agronomic decision. It depends on the crop variety, farming system, the crop succession, the temperature distribution during the crop growing season, and the rainfall characteristics. It is suggested to introduce why these sowing dates were set up?

Response: We appreciate for your kindly suggestion. In order to set a wide range of light and temperature differences during the grouting period, the sowing interval is set as 30 days. Adjusting sowing date is an effective strategies to regulate rice grain quality and yield in the field through altering meteorological parameters (Deng et al., 2015 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eja.2014.12.008; Deng et al., 2022 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fcr.2022.108493;  Wang et al., 2021 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rsci.2021.01.008). In addition, shifting sowing date normally mitigate the challenges of climate changes in crop production (Ding et al., 2020 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2019.105890; Wanogo et al., 2015 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2015.02.006; Rurinda et al., 2015 https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13061). Through the previous experiments (Xu et al., 2021 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2021.729021) of our research group at the same test site as this paper, it is found that when the sowing period is separated by 10 or 15 days, the temperature difference during grouting period is small, generally about 2 ℃. In fact, in the case of late sowing, both tested rice varieties matured safely and harvested normally, although their grain yield reduced significantly by late sowing. We have made clarification about the grain yield performance of two varieties under different sowing dates in the manuscript (Figure S3). We have made related discussion in resubmitted manuscript. Thanks again for your great suggestion.

4. A lot of the results are just superficially descripted. The authors should summarize the main effect of sowing date.

Response: Thank you for your kindly suggestion. We have added some description in our result and discussion part. Sowing date treatments markedly regulate the grain filling and quality formation via affecting temperature, solar radiation and growth duration of growing season, while the tested varieties could safely mature and be normally harvested.

5. In the discussion part, there are too many analyses of my own results, which are not well combined with previous research. It is recommended to refine my own analysis of results and discuss with the results of previous research.

Response: We appreciate your brilliant comments. We have simplified the analysis based on our own results and made more discussion based on previous work in the resubmitted manuscript. We also compared the previous result to our present study to make the results more comprehensive and reliable. As shown in line 415-435.

6. Revise conclusion such that the results are no longer repeated.

Response: Thank you for your kindly suggestion. We have rewritten the conclusion to make it more simplified and systematic.

7. Line 127, the sampling time lasted from 5 DAY to 45 DAY?

Response: We are sorry for this negligence. We have changed that sentence to “Thirty tagged panicles from each plot were sampled at every 5 days from 5 DAA till 25 DAA, then sampled at every 7 days from 25 DAA till 53 DAA.”

8. Line 443-444, 455, there are some formatting problems in the references.

Response: We are sorry for this negligence. And all of the reference were carefully checked to make sure they were in proper format in the resubmitted manuscript.

Response to Reviewer:
Major Comments: I have been finished to review the manuscript, which elucidate the physiological basis of physiochemical properties alteration and quantitative variation of SG and PG as well as their co-regulative effect on rice populational quality. However, it is required some revisions before recommending.

Response: Thank you for your work in process of reviewing the manuscript. Your comments are highly appreciated. We did our best to address the issues mentioned below.

1. The regulation effect of sowing date on rice is less introduced in the introduction part, and the effect of sowing date on rice plant growth and development, resource utilization efficiency, yield and quality should be increased. Then point out the shortcomings of previous studies and the novelty of this study.

Response: Thank you for your kindly suggestion. We have made some more description on the regulation of grain yield and quality in respond to sowing date treatments. In the resubmitted manuscript, we have stated the effect of sowing dates on meteorological parameters, grain yield, starch biosynthesis, enzyme activities, taste quality and texture quality of rice, as shown in line 44-55.

2. The daily climate data such as mean temperature, radiation, and precipitation from the transplanting of first sowing date to the maturity of last sowing date must added.

Response: Thank you for your kindly suggestion. We have added the daily climate data as Supplementary Figure 2 (Figure S2) in this revised manuscript (Below the main body of the resubmitted manuscript).

3. Sowing date adjustment is a complex agronomic decision. It depends on the crop variety, farming system, the crop succession, the temperature distribution during the crop growing season, and the rainfall characteristics. It is suggested to introduce why these sowing dates were set up?

Response: We appreciate for your kindly suggestion. In order to set a wide range of light and temperature differences during the grouting period, the sowing interval is set as 30 days. Adjusting sowing date is an effective strategies to regulate rice grain quality and yield in the field through altering meteorological parameters (Deng et al., 2015 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eja.2014.12.008; Deng et al., 2022 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fcr.2022.108493;  Wang et al., 2021 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rsci.2021.01.008). In addition, shifting sowing date normally mitigate the challenges of climate changes in crop production (Ding et al., 2020 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2019.105890; Wanogo et al., 2015 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2015.02.006; Rurinda et al., 2015 https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13061). Through the previous experiments (Xu et al., 2021 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2021.729021) of our research group at the same test site as this paper, it is found that when the sowing period is separated by 10 or 15 days, the temperature difference during grouting period is small, generally about 2 ℃. In fact, in the case of late sowing, both tested rice varieties matured safely and harvested normally, although their grain yield reduced significantly by late sowing. We have made clarification about the grain yield performance of two varieties under different sowing dates in the manuscript (Figure S3). We have made related discussion in resubmitted manuscript. Thanks again for your great suggestion.

4. A lot of the results are just superficially descripted. The authors should summarize the main effect of sowing date.

Response: Thank you for your kindly suggestion. We have added some description in our result and discussion part. Sowing date treatments markedly regulate the grain filling and quality formation via affecting temperature, solar radiation and growth duration of growing season, while the tested varieties could safely mature and be normally harvested.

5. In the discussion part, there are too many analyses of my own results, which are not well combined with previous research. It is recommended to refine my own analysis of results and discuss with the results of previous research.

Response: We appreciate your brilliant comments. We have simplified the analysis based on our own results and made more discussion based on previous work in the resubmitted manuscript. We also compared the previous result to our present study to make the results more comprehensive and reliable. As shown in line 415-435.

6. Revise conclusion such that the results are no longer repeated.

Response: Thank you for your kindly suggestion. We have rewritten the conclusion to make it more simplified and systematic.

7. Line 127, the sampling time lasted from 5 DAY to 45 DAY?

Response: We are sorry for this negligence. We have changed that sentence to “Thirty tagged panicles from each plot were sampled at every 5 days from 5 DAA till 25 DAA, then sampled at every 7 days from 25 DAA till 53 DAA.”

8. Line 443-444, 455, there are some formatting problems in the references.

Response: We are sorry for this negligence. And all of the reference were carefully checked to make sure they were in proper format in the resubmitted manuscript.

Reviewer 2 Report

Rice (Oryza sativa L.), one of the global staple crops, has made a great contribution to the development of China's national economy. Nowadays, it is important to enhance rice cooking and taste quality (CTQ) to meet the increasing demand from market. Rice quality is directly determined by grain filling of rice spikelets, which is largely regulated by changing environments, like temperature, light and water. Adjusting sowing date is one of the most useful cultivation strategies to regulate rice quality via altering filling stage thermal resources, including temperature and solar radiation. The effect of adjusting changing sowing date on grain quality of two cultivated rice varieties at different panicle position has not been reported, which is significant. The research is rich in data and reliable in research methods, and the results have a positive practical effect on high-quality rice cultivation in this region. However, the manuscript still has the following problems that need to be greatly revised:

1. The setting time of sowing date of this manuscript is not reasonable, there is a 30 day gap per treatment of sowing data, resulting in a huge difference in growth period, a failure of yield potential of varieties and seriously affect yield as well. This treatment exceeding the safe sowing date of a variety is rarely used in production, which is the result of the manuscript of limited practical significance.
2. Rice production should be established on the basis of high and stable yield, and then be on the basis of high quality. Rice yield should be guaranteed first to ensure food security. It is suggested that the author supplement the data of yield of two rice varieties in two years, so that the results of this manuscript has more practical significance.
3. In this manuscript, there are a larger amount of data, including different years, different varieties and different treatments with different sowing date as well. So there are many small figures in each figure in this manuscript. But the author does not distinguish these small figures by English letters. But instead of using English letters to separate these small pictures per figure, the author uses some simple descriptions such as “upper or lower, left and right, white or black”. It's very difficult for readers to read and search the data just for these descriptions. The problem involved in many of the figures in the manuscript and need to be added totally.
4. The writing of this manuscript was rough and need to be carefully checked. There are many mistakes including spelling, upper and lower subscripts, italics and so on. The manuscript need to be carefully checked and revised totally by authors themselves.

Here are some examples as following:

• Spelling mistakes.

Page 1 line 12 “ho10were’?

• The naming of rice varieties is not standardized.

The rice varieties such as “Nanjing 9108, Ningjing 7 “in this manuscript is translated as “Nanjing 9108, Ningjing 7” . The “th” is not necessary.

• The abbreviation that appears in this manuscript for the first time, have no full name in English. It is hard to know what meaning the abbreviations is to be represented.For example, in Abstract of this manuscript.

Page 1  line 17 GD?

       Line 26 PG?

• Upper and lower indices are not normal

Page 2  line 91-92 NH4+, NO3-,

Page 3  line 98 ha-1

• The gravity of centrifuge “g”is usually shown in italics.

Page 4  line 158  4000 g

• For example, figure 2 and figure 4 seem to be the same. Is it a paste error? Please check!
• There are two figures 4 in the manuscript.Please check them.

• In view of this, I personally think that the manuscript needs to be greatly revised.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Response to Reviewer:

Major Comments: Rice (Oryza sativa L.), one of the global staple crops, has made a great contribution to the development of China's national economy. Nowadays, it is important to enhance rice cooking and taste quality (CTQ) to meet the increasing demand from market. Rice quality is directly determined by grain filling of rice spikelets, which is largely regulated by changing environments, like temperature, light and water. Adjusting sowing date is one of the most useful cultivation strategies to regulate rice quality via altering filling stage thermal resources, including temperature and solar radiation. The effect of adjusting changing sowing date on grain quality of two cultivated rice varieties at different panicle position has not been reported, which is significant. The research is rich in data and reliable in research methods, and the results have a positive practical effect on high-quality rice cultivation in this region. However, the manuscript still has the following problems that need to be greatly revised

Response: Thank you for your work in process of reviewing the manuscript. Your comments are highly appreciated. We did our best to address the issues mentioned below. And we have attached our revised manuscript below.

1. The setting time of sowing date of this manuscript is not reasonable, there is a 30 day gap per treatment of sowing data, resulting in a huge difference in growth period, a failure of yield potential of varieties and seriously affect yield as well. This treatment exceeding the safe sowing date of a variety is rarely used in production, which is the result of the manuscript of limited practical significance.

Response: We deeply appreciate your brilliant suggestion. The purpose of this setting is to set a wide range of light and temperature differences during both before and after flowering stages, which markedly affect the grain filling and quality formation. Our previous unpublished work at the same site as this experiment demonstrated that 15 days sowing date gap is not enough to build effective temperature, solar radiation and growth duration gradient, which is consistent to previous work (Zhou et al., 2021 https://doi.org/10.1016/S2095-3119(20)63561-4). Moreover, in the case of late sowing, both tested rice varieties matured safely and harvested normally as shown in Figure S3, although the grain yield reduced significantly under late sowing condition. Adjusting sowing date is an effective strategies to regulate rice grain quality and yield in the field through altering meteorological parameters (Deng et al., 2015 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eja.2014.12.008; Deng et al., 2022 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fcr.2022.108493;  Wang et al., 2021 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rsci.2021.01.008). In addition, shifting sowing date normally in crop production to mitigate the challenges of climate changes (Ding et al., 2020 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2019.105890; Wanogo et al., 2015 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2015.02.006; Rurinda et al., 2015 https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13061). We have made related discussion in resubmitted manuscript. Thanks again for your great suggestion.

1. Rice production should be established on the basis of high and stable yield, and then be on the basis of high quality. Rice yield should be guaranteed first to ensure food security. It is suggested that the author supplement the data of yield of two rice varieties in two years, so that the results of this manuscript has more practical significance.

Response: Thank you for your suggestion. We have added the grain yield as Supplementary Figure S3 (Stated in the end of the manuscript). As shown in Figure S3, both tested varieties were able to mature safely and be normally harvested.

1. In this manuscript, there are a larger amount of data, including different years, different varieties and different treatments with different sowing date as well. So there are many small figures in each figure in this manuscript. But the author does not distinguish these small figures by English letters. But instead of using English letters to separate these small pictures per figure, the author uses some simple descriptions such as “upper or lower, left and right, white or black”. It's very difficult for readers to read and search the data just for these descriptions. The problem involved in many of the figures in the manuscript and need to be added totally.

Response: Thank you for your kindly suggestion, we are deeply sorry for these negligences. We have revised all of the figures and figure legend. All of the figures with separated small figures were marked as (A), (B), (C), etc. Line 203, 220,236, 265, 289, 319 and 325.

1. The writing of this manuscript was rough and need to be carefully checked. There are many mistakes including spelling, upper and lower subscripts, italics and so on. The manuscript needs to be carefully checked and revised totally by authors themselves.

Response: We apologize for our negligence and carefully checked the writing of the whole manuscript to avoid these issues.

5. Spelling mistakes. Page 1 line 12 “ho10were’?

Response: We have revised and checked the whole manuscript to ensure there were no such issues anymore.

6. The naming of rice varieties is not standardized. The rice varieties such as “Nanjing 9108, Ningjing 7 “in this manuscript is translated as “Nanjing 9108, Ningjing 7”. The “th” is not necessary.

Response: All of the Nanjing 9108^th and Ningjing 7^th has been changed to Nanjing 9108 and Ningjing 7.

7. The abbreviation that appears in this manuscript for the first time, have no full name in English. It is hard to know what meaning the abbreviations is to be represented. For example, in Abstract of this manuscript. Page 1 line 17 GD? Line 26 PG?

Response: We are sorry for this mistake, and we have checked the abbreviation to make sure they all have the full name at the first mention.

8. Upper and lower indices are not normal. Page 2  line 91-92 NH4+, NO3-, Page 3  line 98 ha-1

Response: All of the upper and lower indices were checked and stated properly in the resubmitted manuscript.

9. The gravity of centrifuge “g”is usually shown in italics. Page 4  line 158  4000 g

Response: We have changed the “g” into italics 4000 × g and checked the whole manuscript to make sure all of this issue have been revised.

10. For example, figure 2 and figure 4 seem to be the same. Is it a paste error? Please check!

Response: We apologize for our negligence and carefully checked the sequence of the figures and make sure they were all in right order.

Reviewer 3 Report

Needs to improve language.

Author Response

Thank you for your work in process of reviewing the manuscript. We have made some minor modification on our manuscript to make the results stated in proper way, as shown in resubmitted manuscript attached below.