Development and Application of Seed Coating Agent for the Control of Major Soil-Borne Diseases Infecting Wheat

Round  1

Reviewer 1 Report

I have attached a pdf file containing comments and edits to the manuscript. Although the authors cited the statistical evaluation of data p values and statistical significance was not included in the tables.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Q1. I have attached a pdf file containing comments and edits to the manuscript. Although the authors cited the statistical evaluation of data p values and statistical significance was not included in the tables.

Response: Thank you for your comments.  We have added the statistical analysis in our revision. In addition, we have entirely corrected all the mistakes and modified our manuscript in accordance with your suggestions in the pdf file.

Q2. Is this the best reference for this statement? It appears to be about durum wheat and fusarium.

Response: Thank you for your comments. The initial data was derived from Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. We have modified the reference in accordance with your kind advice:

2. Figueroa, M.; Hammond‐Kosack, K. E.; Solomon, P.S. A review of wheat diseases-a field perspective[J]. Molecular plant pathology, 2018, 19, 1523-1536.

Q3. IS this the best refernce for this point?

Response: Thank you for your comments. The statement was just referred from McMillan et al. (2018), and Please check it in URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-25511-8.

Q4. Not clear “Moderate and severe those soil-borne diseases”

Response: Thank you for your comments. A redundant word was added in our manuscript duo to our error. We meant the “Moderate to severe soil-borne diseases can result in grain yield losses (an annual loss of ~20%) and poor grain quality”

Q5. revise for clarity “this study the toxicity and plant growth effects of different pesticide and adjuvant, as wheat seed coating treatments was evaluated, and the optimal formulation were studied to develop a high-efficiency and safe seed coating agent for the control of wheat sharp eyespot, root rot, and take-all.”

Response: Thank you for your comments. We have modified the statement in accordance with your suggestion and you can see it in line 60-64.

Q6. should these be spelled out or furhter identified?

Response: Those words were the abbreviation of the agricultural additives, and the full names were detailed in Table S1. According to your suggestion, we deleted the comments (e.g., LAE-9, S-20, SG-6, PEG-78 8000, A-115, 33#, BY-140, EL-60, T-20, JFC, JFC-E) to better understand.

Q7. “and the stability are well acceptable” not clear

Response: It means that the stability, e.g., heat and cool stability, all well fulfilled the demands of pesticide preparation.

Q8. “Film former are the important present in seed coating formulations” not clear

Response: It means that the film former is the important composition in seed coating formulations. Moreover, film former was also can be maned to film composition according to the reference survey. We have modified the statement in accordance with your kind suggestion.

Reviewer 2 Report

Before being used for path trials, for how long those isolates were stored in fridge? I am asking this because fungal isolates may loss pathogenicity or some degree of pathogenicity if being preserved in fridge for a long time.

For toxicity test, how the positive control was set up? positive control should be set up by adding same amount of acetone (without pesticide) in the media and growing the fungus on it.

Line 97: Please mention all the additives in detail. For example, names, companies from where they were obtained/purchased, amount etc.

Line 98: Please mention the ratio

Line 100: Please mention how the stability was measured/determined.

Line 145: Table description: 8 fungicides or 10 pesticides?

Figure 1: I can not see any labels on X or Y axes. Please mention them. On X axes, please put corresponding names of surfactants.

Line 183 to 184: The whole sentence needs to be modified so that it makes sense.

Line 220: duo to or due to?

Author Response

Q1. Before being used for path trials, for how long those isolates were stored in fridge? I am asking this because fungal isolates may loss pathogenicity or some degree of pathogenicity if being preserved in fridge for a long time.

Response: Thank you for your comments. The storage time of strains were no more than 21 day, which did not loss the pathogenicity or some degree of pathogenicity.

Q2. or toxicity test, how the positive control was set up? positive control should be set up by adding same amount of acetone (without pesticide) in the media and growing the fungus on it.

Response: In the toxicity test, media treated with acetone were used as a negative control, and water was used as a blank control. The aim of this study is to compare the toxicity of different pesticides, and thus, we did not set up the positive control with pesticide.

Q3. Line 97: Please mention all the additives in detail. For example, names, companies from where they were obtained/purchased, amount etc.

Response: Thank you for your comments. Agricultural additives obtained from Haian Petrochemical Factory (Nantong, China), and the details (e.g., full names and their property) were as shown in Table S1. Please check it.

Q4. Line 98: Please mention the ratio

Response: Thank you for your comments. The ratio is 2.65%, which was obtained by screening. You can see the main components and ratio of the optimal formula in Table 3.

Q5. Line 100: Please mention how the stability was measured/determined.

Response: Thank you for your comments. The stability was measured by the recommended Collaborative International Pesticides Analytical Council (CIPAC) method.

Q6. Line 145: Table description: 8 fungicides or 10 pesticides?

Response: I am sorry for my carelessness here. Actually, the number of pesticides is 10. I made the mistake in writing the paper.

Q7. Figure 1: I can not see any labels on X or Y axes. Please mention them. On X axes, please put corresponding names of surfactants.

Response: Thank you for your comments. We have corrected the bug that may occur in the manuscript submission. In our original manuscript, the labels on Figure axes is visible.

Q8. Line 183 to 184: The whole sentence needs to be modified so that it makes sense.

Response: Thank you for your comments. We have re-structured the sense in our manuscript for reading and understanding easily and clearly. You can see it in line 185-186.

Q9. Line 220: duo to or due to?

Response: I am sorry for may carelessness, we have corrected the error.