Effective Plant Ages for Screening for Field Resistance to Alternaria Leaf Spot (Caused by Alternaria spp.) under Natural Infection in Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus L.)
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript is well-written and has a logical flow.
The introduction needs some background information on the pathogen epidemics and environment factors that can affect the pathogen growth as it can be important when interpreting or discussing the results (probably a short paragraph would be enough).
The Method section is concise enough and are easy to read. The results are also well presented.
The discussion part needs a bit of more work with mentioning the shortcomings of the study. The possible effect of the weather data on the disease progress should be discussed in discussion part to account for uncertainties and caveats.
Author Response
October 24, 2019
Dear Editor/Reviewers
We are pleased to resubmit the manuscript no. Agronomy-608456 entitled “Effective plant ages for screening of field resistance to Alternaria leaf spot (caused by Alternaria spp.) under natural infection in Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus L.)” after revision for re-evaluation and possible publication in the Agronomy.
The authors would like to thank the editor and reviewers for all valuable comments and suggestion on the manuscript in order to improve the manuscript.
We have revised the manuscript based on editor and reviewers, comments and suggestions. All of the points and responses from the editor and reviewers done and attached with this file.
Best Regards,
Suwita Saepaisan
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Review of the article entitled Effective plant ages for screening of field resistance to Alternaria leaf spot under natural infection in Jerusalem artichoke, submitted to the journal as a Short Communication.
The article compares disease assessments for Jerusalem artichoke plants at 20, 40, and 60 DAT ages to see if these ages are acceptable to screen JA genotypes for resistance. The authors mention that plants around 80 DAT (when flowering) were used for past screening efforts.
The experimental design was interesting and acceptable to compare the resistance levels of these plant ages with each other. This was a strength of the article.
The article needs to do a better job of introducing the pathosystem and how Alternaria leaf spot resistance is typically screened for JA.
Is the standard resistance screening method done by transplanting 80 DAT flowering plants into a high disease pressure field (similar to this experiment), or do breeders normally follow plants that have been in the field since very young, and then rate for disease starting at 80 DAT? If it is the former, then why was there no 80 DAT treatment (positive control)? If it is the later, then does disease pressure in the field change over time and could this be an important factor to consider before recommending that 40 or 60 DAT ages are acceptable for screening? If disease pressure does change over time, then the conclusion is overstated, at least if breeders are relying on natural inoculum. What is the incubation period for Alternaria leaf spot disease cycle? Since 18 days after transplanting was used for the incidence and severity analyses, that would place the 60 DAT treatment at 78 DAT, which is (if I understand correctly) during the bloom stage and within “the most suitable period for screening of resistance to Alternaria leaf spot in JA…” as used by a previous study.
It would be helpful to identify varieties as resistant or susceptible in the tables.
The wording in a few places make it sound like there was one inoculation event in each experiment, but is this true? Clarify.
How many treatment replications were there? I saw 3 in one place and 4 in another.
Author Response
October 24, 2019
Dear Editor/Reviewers
We are pleased to resubmit the manuscript no. Agronomy-608456 entitled “Effective plant ages for screening of field resistance to Alternaria leaf spot (caused by Alternaria spp.) under natural infection in Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus L.)” after revision for re-evaluation and possible publication in the Agronomy.
The authors would like to thank the editor and reviewers for all valuable comments and suggestion on the manuscript in order to improve the manuscript.
We have revised the manuscript based on editor and reviewers, comments and suggestions. All of the points and responses from the editor and reviewers done and attached with this file.
Best Regards,
Suwita Saepaisan
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript still needs a bit of proof reading and I suggest the authors give it another go, probably to editing services. Some sentences are too long and need to be modified. Scientifically/technically the paper is acceptable for publication in my opinion.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
November 4, 2019
Dear Editor/Reviewers
We are pleased to resubmit the manuscript no. Agronomy-608456 (round 2) entitled “Effective plant ages for the screening of field resistance to Alternaria leaf spot (caused by Alternaria spp.) under natural infection in Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus L.)” after revision for re-evaluation and possible publication in the Agronomy.
The authors would like to thank the editor and reviewers for all valuable comments and suggestions on the manuscript to improve the manuscript.
We have revised the manuscript based on editor and reviewers, comments and suggestions. All of the points and responses from the editor and reviewers done and attached to this file.
Best Regards,
Suwita Saepaisan
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The content of the changes are acceptable. However, sentence structure and grammar of these new parts need work before publication.
Author Response
November 4, 2019
Dear Editor/Reviewers
We are pleased to resubmit the manuscript no. Agronomy-608456 (round 2) entitled “Effective plant ages for the screening of field resistance to Alternaria leaf spot (caused by Alternaria spp.) under natural infection in Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus L.)” after revision for re-evaluation and possible publication in the Agronomy.
The authors would like to thank the editor and reviewers for all valuable comments and suggestions on the manuscript to improve the manuscript.
We have revised the manuscript based on editor and reviewers, comments and suggestions. All of the points and responses from the editor and reviewers done and attached to this file.
Best Regards,
Suwita Saepaisan
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
