Effect of Foliar Treatment with Aqueous Dispersions of Silver Nanoparticles on Legume-Rhizobium Symbiosis and Yield of Soybean (Glycine max L. Merr.)
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
- There are some formatting errors and spell mistakes in the manuscript.
- There are also some state errors in the manuscript.
- PFO might be the spell mistake of PPO in the manuscript.
- It is suggested that higher concentration of Ag-PHMB dispersion need to be defined as the optimum biologic dose.
- The manuscript showed that an opposite enzymatic activity of peroxidases and polyphenol oxidases between terrestrial parts and roots of soybean via the treatments with low doses of Ag-PHMB dispersion. The reason of which might be further revealed, especially the observed decrease of two enzymatic activities in the roots susceptible to rhizobia.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
- First comment addressed.
- The second comment, corrected
- We assume that the dose of silver NPs studied in our work was optimal for the growth-stimulating effect. Higher doses of silver are more likely to depress soybean plants. Since this plant growth regulator has been registered in Russia as a pesticide and is widely used, the optimal dosage discussed in the article was obtained experimentally as a result of many years of testing.
- Good idea about reviewer comment
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors report on the benefits of low doses of silver nanoparticles as foliar treatment on soybean-rhizobia symbiosis and soybeans yield. I believe that this can be used as a biotechnological a tool to improve the yield soybean crops.
The results of the manuscript are suitable for publication in the Agronomy journal. However, there some comments to address, which I believe it will improve the quality of the manuscript.
General comments:
As recommendation, the addition of line numbers in the manuscript would have helped the reviewing process.
Section 3.2 of Results and Discussion (“Field experiments”) is extremely long (from page 7 to page 14). I recommend to make subsections or divided it into different sections.
I suggest that Results and Discussion should be two independent sections.
Authors contributions, funding, data availability and conflict of interest sections (back matter of the manuscript) are not completed.
References style should be revised. It is not homogeneous.
Specific comments:
Page 2, line 8: The term “anaerobic” stands for “no oxygen”. In the nodules, the environment is oxygen-limited or microoxic. Similarly, in page 10, lines 15-16, it is said: “the process of reduction of molecular nitrogen to ammonium nitrogen in the presence of the nitrogenase enzyme occurs under strictly anaerobic conditions”. Please, correct the term “anaerobic”. It should read “oxygen-limited conditions” or “microaerobic conditions”.
Pages 2, 14, conclusions: “Glycine max L. ” should be written in italics, i.e., “Glycine max L.”
Despite the fact that the soybean-rhizobia experiments were carried out under field conditions as described in page 4, it should be stated somewhere in the manuscript that the bacterial species which elicited nodule formation were indigenous.
I believe that the chemical formula of daidzein (page 8) is not required in the context of this manuscript. Please, delete it.
Page 9, line 4: “legoglobin” should read “leghemoglobin”.
Author Response
Reviewer 2
- Line numbering added
- Two subsections, 3.2.1 and 3.2.2 added
- It is a good idea but as this part is so long it would be difficult for reader to make connections between the information of results part to discussion part
- Authors contributions, funding, data availability and conflict of interest sections completed.
- References style Checked and corrected.
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have taken into consideration most of the comments raised. I still think that the paper would have gained in clarity when the Results and Discussion would have dissected into different sections. But, the present form does not disturb me as it is, although it has not been modified.
Author Response
Dear colleague,
Thanks for your helpful comments
In this stage we did some changes to improve more our manuscript.
