Yield, Physiology, Fruit Quality and Water Footprint in Persian Lime (Citrus latifolia Tan.) in Response to Soil Moisture Tension in Two Phenological Stages in Campeche, México

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Please see the attached file. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript (ID: water-1598480) reports a study evaluating 16 irrigation treatments combining four levels of soil moisture tension for two critical phenological stages. The topic is meaningful to the region planting Persian Lime in Mexico. Multiple plant response variables were measured, and different water use efficiencies were calculated. The experimental design is comprehensive. Data and statistical analysis lead to reasonable conclusions. The major problem is the wordy writing style, long sentences, and confusing expressions.

Following are some examples:

The title is too long and wordy. The main idea of the study is about “irrigation treatments,” but the current Title does not highlight it enough.

It is OK to use abbreviations of “FL” and “FR” to express the two phenological stages in Table or Figures, but it is not recommended to use them in the text. Otherwise, it is hard to read when the text mixes with abbreviations that have different meanings, such as phenological stages (FL, FR), variable names (e.g., FY, FW), and equipment (e.g., EU). Apply the comment for checking the entire manuscript.

Line 30, add a sentence to help readers understand the significance of the study.

Line 41-42, here is an example of a wordy sentence. It can be shortened significantly. For example, in Line 41, add “irrigated” before “area,” then “where irrigation….established” in Line 42.

Line 121-128, very long sentence.

Line 138, “SMTs” have been introduced; you don’t need to present it again.

 Line 145, “in the depth of 30 cm”

Line 147, delete “SMT.”

Line 148, delete “applied in each EU’

Line 151, why not sort the treatments by “SMT in the flowering stage” in Table 1? Right now, there is no order. “FL” or “FR” should be outside the braces, as “(FL, kPa)” makes readers think “FL” is a variable name.

Line 153-155, this subsection is too short. More details are needed.

Line 179, replace “without a change in” with “with the same.”

Line 192, why do you need to keep 30 cm away from the canopy?

Line 225-227, replace “=” with “is.”

Line 283, it is unusual to put the treatments by the side of the figure. So, remove them. Do not repeat it—apply the same comment for Figures 3 and 4. The treatments have been explained early.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper aims mainly to evaluate the effect of a combination of four soil moisture tensions to define the start and the duration of irrigations, with respect to different types of variables, as total water footprint, yield, juice content, and so on.

Here some comments, that need to be addressed before the paper can be reconsidered for publication.

• Line 28, in the abstract. Probably authors should replace “managed” with “management”
• Lines 65-67: “In all these works, the authors determined ranges of optimal SMT values to obtain the greatest yields, and in some of them SMT ranges were defined that led to greater water use efficiency and a lower water footprint”. I think it would be of great interest, for future improvements, also try to couple these practical results with modelling results dealing with optimal control and optimization of irrigation, in a mathematical framework (see for instance Berardi et al TiPM 2022, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11242-021-01730-y ; Pereira et al 2018, doi:10.3390/su10124648 ): accordingly, conclusions drawn by Garcia-Sanchèz et al (line 68) could be generalized and formalized.
• Lines 124-127: even if it is not necessary for the present study, a complete hydrological characterization for the soil (soil water content at saturation, residual water content, saturated hydraulic conductivity, etc) would be useful for future possible modelling improvements of the results, based for instance, on classical Richards’ equation based models.
• Lines 129-130: authors apply a probe just at the depth of 30 cm beneath the soil surface: what would they expect if they had also applied probes to another depth? Often TDR probes allow to collect measures at two or more different depths: a comment on this would be valuable.
• Section 3.2 I think the rationale of this section should be briefly explained before going into details.
• Figure 1A. I do not understand what is the total number of irrigation: I thought it was an integer number, bout it is not, so please try a more understandable caption for the vertical axis.
• Maybe I got lost in the whole paper, but I can’t find the following information: the SMT is kept constant in time during the experiment? If so, how this constant SMT is controlled? In such a case, such a value is monitored continuously in time? How often these values are recorded?
• With regard to the section 5, I think that a more synthetic conclusion would be valuable, for sake of readability.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Authors deeply addressed all my comments.

I think now the paper could be accepted for publication in Water