Co-Inoculation of Sechium edule (Jacq.) Sw. Plants with Rhizophagus intraradices and Azospirillum brasilense to Reduce Phytophthora capsici Damage

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript entitled „Inoculation of Sechium edule (Jacq.) Sw. Plants with Phytophthora capsici and biofertilized with Rhizophagus intraradices and Azospirillum brasilense” by Juan Francisco Aguirre-Medina et al. investigates the influence of inoculation of Sechium edule (Jacq.) Sw. Plants with Phytophthora capsici and biofertilized with Rhizophagus intraradices and Azospirillum brasilense. The research could be of potential interest to the readers of Agriculture journal. Despite these recognition I consider that authors should perform some major corrections prior manuscript publication since, in my opinion, the manuscript in this present form does not meet the scientific standard for the Journal for a number of main concerns:

1. The entire manuscript should be formatted following Agriculture journal template. I recommend that authors download the word or latex template from journal’s website and follow the instruction mentioned in this document.
2. The abstract is too long therefore should be reorganized, there are a lot of extra spaces between phrases all throughout the manuscript, the Results section should report the results achieved but instead covers also some discussion concerning the results compared to previous researches, the Discussion section is too short and looks more like a results report than a discussion of results in accordance to previous researches, the References section is not edited according to the instructions for authors.
3. I recommend authors to formulate some research objectives/hypothesis which are totally missing from this manuscript and introduce them in Abstract and at the end of Introduction section.
4. I encourage authors to make a critical assessment of what parameters are of primary importance in their research/concerning the greenhouse environmental factors and these parameters should be measured and reported. The manuscript in this present form does not provide any information regarding these parameters.
5. Figures 1 and 2 are difficult to understand: I recommend authors to use shortcuts for species/parameters and to explain them in a legend. In this present form is difficult to understand which is a certain variable, there are all mixed together.
6. Please check the manuscript for minor spell checks and English language since some phrases are difficult to understand.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript entitled "Inoculation of Sechium edule (Jacq.) Sw. Plants with Phytophthora capsici and biofertilized with Rhizophagus intraradices and Azospirillum brasilense is an interesting piece of research work, however lacks the quality of presentation and clarity. I suggest please work on the comments and rewrite the whole results section so that it can be reviewed properly---

1. Title – the title seems incomplete. It does not convey the comprehensive research done in the article. What I guess is that the authors evaluated the impact of biofertilizers in single and in co-inoculation on the management of disease severity of capsici on Sechium edule (Jacq.) Sw. Plants. However, nothing reflects in the title ----please work on it and reframe
2. Abstract- please reframe the abstract section, change sentences from line No- 18 to 21. I suggest the section can be included in methodology and here it must be replaced with a short concise sentence or in tabulation as suggested below---
3. Line no- 45- SAGARPA, please expand this
4. Section 2.6 Please rewrite the section more elaborative way. As authors were talking about the drying of plant material but didn’t mention harvesting when dome and how it was done at what stage. ---
5. Results section 3.1, line – 142 to 147, please rewrite it, hard to understand with the current form of treatment description--- I suggest please include a table as suggested will be better to understand

S.No	Treatments	Abbreviation used
1	Control	CL
2	P. capsici	PC
3	R. intraradices	RI
4	A. brasilense	AB
5	R. intraradices + A. brasilense	RI+AB
6	R. intraradices + P. capsici	RI+PC
7	A. brasilense +P. capsici	AB+PC
8	R. intraradices + A. brasilense + P. capsici	RI+AB+PC

 Please include this table in the methodology section so that it will be better to understand and follow—

6. What I understand from the manuscript that the authors have conducted the research to look the impact of biofertilizers in capsici management Or reduction of disease severity of P. capsici, however why they have included treatment with a combination of two biofertilizers itself. This is no explanation and inclusion in the methodology section--- please work on the same --
7. The presentation of results need to be rewritten as it's hard to correlate and understand, Please follow this recently published paper https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy11030570 might be helpful in framing the results ----
8. Please don’t include citations in the results section and present only results as suggested in the above paper—Here authors have a separate section for results and discussion so it must be not mixed up-----
9. I look forward to having a rewritten revised version for the further review process ----

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

It is difficult for me to follow if you responded to all my comments since you haven't uploaded any author response for my comments. The document uploaded as author response covers the comments made by another reviewer, and not those formulated by me.

It was very difficult to observe weather you followed my recommendation or not without your point-by-point response, but as I have noticed the following comments from my previous review report  were not considered in the changes performed by you:

1. The entire manuscript should be formatted following Agriculture journal template. I recommend that authors download the word or latex template from journal’s website and follow the instruction mentioned in this document.
2. The References section is not edited according to the instructions for authors.
3. I encourage authors to make a critical assessment of what parameters are of primary importance in their research/concerning the greenhouse environmental factors and these parameters should be measured and reported. The manuscript in this present form does not provide any information regarding these parameters.
4. Please check the manuscript for minor spell checks and English language since some phrases are difficult to understand.

Author Response

Please see the attachment poin-by-point

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The comments and suggestions on the manuscript entitled "Inoculation of Sechium edule (Jacq.) Sw. Plants with Phytophthora capsici and biofertilized with Rhizophagus intraradices and Azospirillum brasilense "have been well addressed by the authors. The suggested comments on the table, with description, were well adapted and are highly appreciable. They have worked on all the comments and I found them satisfactory. The revised version of the manuscript is much improved and easy to follow.

Thanks for the revision and for addressing the comments for the overall improvement of the manuscript.

Author Response

Thanks for the revision