Prickly Sida (Sida spinosa L.) and Cotton Response to Pre- and Early Post-Emergence Herbicides
, Thomas Gitsopoulos 3,*, Ioannis Vasilakoglou 4, Christos Vlachos 5, Philippos Mylonas 2 and George Menexes 1
Bernard Zandstra
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
L. 91: prickly sida when
L. 127-130: Table 1. Check all information. Several mistakes in HRAC group and MoA.
L. 274 ff: Table 5 can be eliminated, and the results included with one sentence in the text. Essentially there is no effect on fiber quality.
The above listed paper: The dynamics of sugar maize (Zea mays saccharate Sturt.) infestation of field pansy (Viola arvensis), provides no useful information about field pansy infestation in sweet corn. After over 20 years of observation, their conclusion is that: "The smallest proportion of field pansy fresh weight can be expected in a wet and cool year, while the largest proportion can be expected in a dry and moderate year." In other words, the number of a certain species to proliferate in a production field depends on the weather. This is not new information. This paper presents no new biological or agronomic information. The authors cannot go back and repeat the experiment. Time can not be replaced. Other crops in the cropping sequence may or may not contribute to modest changes in weed populations. In my opinion, this paper presents no new information, which in my opinion is a prerequisite for accepting a paper for publication.
Author Response
Response to Comments and Suggestions for Authors
1. 91: prickly sida when
Re: Point addressed.
2. 127-130: Table 1. Check all information. Several mistakes in HRAC group and MoA.
Re: Table 1 information is checked. One error in the MoA of the herbicide pendimethalin was identified and corrected. No errors in HRAC group numbers were identified.
3. 274 ff: Table 5 can be eliminated, and the results included with one sentence in the text. Essentially there is no effect on fiber quality.
Re: Fiber quality parameters differed among treatments only for micronaire. Although there was no significant difference between treatments regarding the rest of the measured parameters, we suggest that the data are helpful for any reader interested in the scale of these parameter values for the cotton hybrid we used under Greek conditions.
4. The above listed paper: The dynamics of sugar maize (Zea mays saccharate Sturt.) infestation of field pansy (Viola arvensis), provides no useful information about field pansy infestation in sweet corn. After over 20 years of observation, their conclusion is that: "The smallest proportion of field pansy fresh weight can be expected in a wet and cool year, while the largest proportion can be expected in a dry and moderate year." In other words, the number of a certain species to proliferate in a production field depends on the weather. This is not new information. This paper presents no new biological or agronomic information. The authors cannot go back and repeat the experiment. Time can not be replaced. Other crops in the cropping sequence may or may not contribute to modest changes in weed populations. In my opinion, this paper presents no new information, which in my opinion is a prerequisite for accepting a paper for publication.
Re: This remark is not related to our manuscript.
Reviewer 2 Report
Review – Prickly sida (Sida spinosa L.) and cotton response to pre- and 2 early post-emergence herbicides
General assessment the theme is very important in the current context of agriculture, for successful management of prickly sida en to maximize cotton yield and quality.
I have only one crecao for the text:
Material and methods: page 4, table 1 – pendimethalin is group 3, but it's a Inhibition of microtubule assembly and not a inhibition of protoporphyrinogen oxidase with as it is in the table.
The rest of the text is ok.
Author Response
Response to Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Review – Prickly sida (Sida spinosa L.) and cotton response to pre- and 2 early post-emergence herbicides
Re: Thank you for the suggestion on the title. Please, allow us to maintain the title as submitted. The reason for this is because if we specify the number of EPOST herbicides we should also do the same for the PRE ones, which will make the title, in our opinion rather too long and ‘cumbersome’.
General assessment the theme is very important in the current context of agriculture, for successful management of prickly sida en to maximize cotton yield and quality.
I have only one crecao for the text:
Material and methods: page 4, table 1 – pendimethalin is group 3, but it's a Inhibition of microtubule assembly and not a inhibition of protoporphyrinogen oxidase with as it is in the table.
Re: Point addressed.
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Authors,
I have some revisions below:
Abstract:
1. Rewrite the abstract in a more specific and convincing manner.
2. What is the unique approach of this study?
3. “None of the herbicides caused injury to the crop!!” Is there any evidence about it? Add the reference information about this statement.
Introduction:
1. What is the convincing point to study about this weed species? The authors explain that this weed is way more important in the USA than in Greece. Rewrite the introduction based on the importance of this weed in Greek agriculture.
2. Provide some functional details or the background of this weed species and its relatable weeds following the same genus and species in Greek agriculture.
Materials and Methods:
1. Provide a proper Figure for Figure 1.
2. Create some sections of materials and methods, which will interest the reader.
Result and Discussion
1. Marge the result and discussion section.
2. Provide the proper explanations of each table.
Moderate editing is required.
Author Response
Response to Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Abstract:
- Rewrite the abstract in a more specific and convincing manner.
Re: Point addressed.
- What is the unique approach of this study?
Re: The unique approach of this study is the comparative efficacy evaluation of all the selective herbicides used in non-transgenic cotton, either pre-emergence (exploiting position selectivity) or post-emergence (exploiting real selectivity) or in a split application, to control the troublesome weed species that is prickly sida.
- “None of the herbicides caused injury to the crop!!” Is there any evidence about it? Add the reference information about this statement.
Re: The evidence was the lack of any visual symptoms on the crop plants and of any reduction in the crop density, compared to the untreated control. The sentence is rephrased to include this reference information.
Introduction:
- What is the convincing point to study about this weed species? The authors explain that this weed is way more important in the USA than in Greece. Rewrite the introduction based on the importance of this weed in Greek agriculture.
Re: In the introduction we state that the weed was important in the USA before the advent of transgenic cotton. Although it still remains on roadsides there, the introduction of transgenic cotton, which allows the use of over-the-top glyphosate or bromoxynil, was able to reduce the presence of prickly sida in cotton in the USA. However, in Greece where only non-transgenic cotton is cultivated, prickly sida is established as a troublesome weed in this crop, as it used to be in the USA. We have revised and clarified the corresponding part of the introduction (Lines 47- 60 in the original submission).
- Provide some functional details or the background of this weed species and its relatable weeds following the same genus and species in Greek agriculture.
Re: This review point is not clear. Prickly sida is an introduced weed in Greece and is the only species of this genus present in the country. A related species listed in the bibliography as troublesome weed is Sida rhombifolia, but it is not present in the country.
Materials and Methods:
- Provide a proper Figure for Figure 1.
Re: Point addressed.
- Create some sections of materials and methods, which will interest the reader.
Re: Point addressed
Result and Discussion
- Marge the result and discussion section.
Re: Our manuscript follows the template provided by the editorial office, where Results is a separate section to Discussion. We deleted the sentences in the discussion that were quoting the results, to streamline the text and eliminate any repetition.
- Provide the proper explanations of each table.
Re: Table 2 numbering is corrected. All tables were checked for potential errors or missing information and no further corrections were needed.
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Response to Comments and Suggestions for Authors
General comments
- Introduction is too long. Please try to reduce it.
Re: Point addressed. We reduced some of the information on prickly sida biology.
- The treatment were laid out in randomised block design. If the authors had limited the Treatments then rdonmisation was restricted to some extent. In that case the design was more like a completely randomised design (RCD) rather than RCBD. RCBD is used to reduce the experimental error by improving the difference between replications.
Re: Please, allow us to clarify that the treatments were laid out in the RCBD design. The CRD design is not “blocking” the experimental units into replicates and thus it cannot be considered as suitable in our case.
In an attempt to further clarify this issue, we are presenting the experimental layout bellow, showing the randomization of the ten treatments (coded 1 to 10) within each block:
BLOCK I: 7, 3, 8, 6, 1, 10, 2, 4, 5, 9
BLOCK II: 1, 9, 4, 3, 6, 8, 2, 7, 5, 10
BLOCK III: 4, 10, 1, 3, 2, 7, 9, 5, 6, 8
BLOCK IV: 4, 2, 7, 1, 5, 3, 6, 10, 9, 8
- The unit plot size is not clearly mentioned although the authors tried to say something in lines 131-132. The number of cotton plants per plot should also be mentioned.
Re: Point addressed
- Abbreviate all substandard terminologies such as BBCH at line 148 of page 4.
Re: Point addressed. We added the terminologies as abbreviations and in full, after the Keywords.
- You have referred to figure S1 a, b etc., but I could not see those at all. At the end the authors have given an http address that I could not access.
Re: The supplementary file was uploaded on the submissions platform. The http address given at the end of the manuscript was in the original template and is not completed by us, hence it is not functional. It should/will be completed by the journal. I will request the assistance of the associate editor on solving this issue.
Specific comments
Re: All specific comments (listed below) are addressed following the reviewer suggestions. The corrections are shown with track changes in the revised manuscript uploaded.
Page /line - comments - suggestions
1/92 - The present study - This study
3/105 - In 154,7 μS/cm. is this a comma OR a STOP? - Please specify
4/137 - from - Replace from with after
4/143 - application - Insert ‘of herbicides’ after application.
6/162 - - Insert a comma after 2022
7/190 - Here and elsewhere - Replace a by α
After line 242 - Table3 last column - Replace m by Lm (for linear meter)
