Assessment of Drought Tolerance of Miscanthus Genotypes through Dry-Down Treatment and Fixed-Soil-Moisture-Content Techniques
and Toshihiko Yamada 5,6,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Overall this is a well written manuscript. The experimental setup and the presentation of results are generally sound. The article refers to the adequate literature and the discussion part gives a critical reflection on the results.
New reviewing comments:
Line 23: Do not start a sentence with “it”.
Lines 23-24: Please explain locations of experiments.
Line 24: This genetic cluster you should mention in previous sentence, where you talk about Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285.
Line 31: “However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels” – sounds better.
Lines 37-38: “Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions.” – sounds better.
Also after this sentence, please define what a bioenergy crops are.
Lines 42-43: Please delete “to drought” at the end of the sentence.
Line 44: Strong drought tolerance is not acceptable definition. Please delete “strong”.
Lines 43-46: Please give some example.
Lines 48-51: Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conductance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE) when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. – sounds better, but please explain what means positively correlated.
Line 53: Reformulate this sentence. What are drought events?
Lines 55-56: Are you talking about recovery or drought? Please write drought in singular, no droughts.
Lines 62-63: In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought. – sounds better.
Lines 64-67: Please write the explanation.
Lines 73-77: This is unclear and I think you should to provide a detail in Material and methods. You wrote that SMC will continue to decline. How do you mean that fixed soil moisture content decline if it is fixed?
Lines 78-82: What is SMS?
Lines 84-85: Unclear. Also, abbreviation SMC means soil moisture content not fixed soil moisture content.
Line 90: Delete “which is” and please reorganize too long sentence.
Lines 101-102: Please explain how.
Line 105: Please replace “Miscanthus” by “Miscanthus species”.
Lines 112-117: Please join this paragraph with previous.
Lines 113-114: Sentence is not clear.
Line 119: Please explain how drought affected this species.
Line 120: As mentioned above, M. × giganteus is not tolerant to drought – not necessary sentence.
Lines 125-131: This is for “Material and methods”.
Line 155: Please write with uppercase letter word “list”.
Lines 168-169: SPAD chlorophyll meter (SPAD-502Plus, Konica Minolta, Osaka, Japan) – you should write this in Line 165 when you first mention the SPAD. Also write what does the SPAD measure, relative content of chlorophyll or?
Line 177: What is the difference in these two experiments except the dry-down period repeating?
Line 178: Why not 23 Miscanthus genotypes?
Lines 194-199: Why these parameters were not measured in the first experiment?
I suggest that the results from Table 4. be shown in the figure.
Lines 703-797: Please check all doi numbers carefully (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 are not active). Also, references 29 and 37 have not doi please enter them.
Author Response
Dear review editor,
Thank you for your precious suggestion. We revised the manuscript based on your advice. Your advice helps the manuscript be more easily understanding. We responded to your point one by one. Please check the following answers and the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Tzuya Weng
Point 1, 2&3: Line 23: Do not start a sentence with “it”. /Lines 23-24: Please explain locations of experiments. / Line 24: This genetic cluster you should mention in previous sentence, where you talk
about Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285.
Response 1, 2&3: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285, align with the M. sinensis ‘Yangtze-Qinling’ genetic cluster, had relatively high principal component analysis ranking values in both two locations experiments, Hokkaido University and Brigham Young University.
Point 4: Line 31: “However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels” – sounds better.
Response 4: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels.
Point 5: Lines 37-38: “Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for
successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions.” – sounds better. Also, after this sentence, please define what a bioenergy crops are.
Response 5: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, such as sugarcane and maize, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions
Point 6: Lines 42-43: Please delete “to drought” at the end of the sentence.
Response 6: We revised the sentence as the following:
To adapt and survive under drought stress, mechanisms involving drought resistance and drought recovery are key aspects of adaptations.
Point 7&8: Line 44: Strong drought tolerance is not acceptable definition. Please delete “strong”. / Lines 43-46: Please give some example.
Response 7&8: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 9: Lines 48-51: Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant
switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conductance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE) when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. – sounds better, but please explain what means positively correlated.
Response 9: We revised this part of the description as the following:
Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) genotypes was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conduct-ance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE), when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. It means that the performance of Pn can be regarded as the physiological response of plants under drought.
Point 10: Line 53: Reformulate this sentence. What are drought events?
Response 10: We revised the sentence as the following:
Extreme drought will likely increase in the future due to global warming.
Point 11: Lines 55-56: Are you talking about recovery or drought? Please write drought in
singular, no droughts.
Response 11: We were considering to describe the recovery from drought in this sentence. And we changed the word of “drought” in singular in the manuscript.
Point 12: Lines 62-63: In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought. – sounds better.
Response 12: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought.
Point 13: Lines 64-67: Please write the explanation.
Response 13: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 14: Lines 73-77: This is unclear and I think you should to provide a detail in Material and methods. You wrote that SMC will continue to decline. How do you mean that fixed soil moisture content decline if it is fixed?
Response 14: We are sorry for making you in confused. This paragraph (Line 72-80) described the changing of SWC in dry-down method. Next paragraph (Line 81-90) was description for the fixed SMC technique.
Point 15: Lines 78-82: What is SMS?
Response 15: We are so sorry for the mistake and revised the word as “SMC” in the manuscript.
Point 16: Lines 84-85: Unclear. Also, abbreviation SMC means soil moisture content not fixed soil moisture content
Response 16: We delete the sentence of Lines 84-85 and revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 17: Line 90: Delete “which is” and please reorganize too long sentence.
Response 17: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus, a C4 perennial rhizomatous grass, has high biomass productivity in marginal lands and expresses high CO2 fixation in low-temperature conditions, underscoring its potential as a bioenergy crop.
Point 18: Lines 101-102: Please explain how.
Response 18: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 19: Line 105: Please replace “Miscanthus” by “Miscanthus species”.
Response 19: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus species are considered to have stronger drought tolerance than another potential energy crop, switchgrass.
Point 20&21: Lines 112-117: Please join this paragraph with previous. / Lines 113-114: Sentence is not clear.
Response 20&21: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 22&23: Line 119: Please explain how drought affected this species. / Line 120: As mentioned above, M. × giganteus is not tolerant to drought – not necessary sentence.
Response 22&23: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 24: Lines 125-131: This is for “Material and methods”.
Response 24: We consider that it is important to show which kind of evaluate methodology we used in the present study. Therefore, we decide to keep this part in “Introduction”.
Point 25: Line 155: Please write with uppercase letter word “list”.
Response 25: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 26: Lines 168-169: SPAD chlorophyll meter (SPAD-502Plus, Konica Minolta, Osaka, Japan) – you should write this in Line 165 when you first mention the SPAD. Also write what does the SPAD measure, relative content of chlorophyll or?
Response 26: We revised this part of the description and added more explanation for what does the SPAD measure, please check in the manuscript.
Point 27: Line 177: What is the difference in these two experiments except the dry-down period repeating?
Response 27: About these two experiments, the dry-down experiment in Hokkaido University and the dry-down experiment in Brigham Young University, the experimental design and method were almost same. The difference in these two experiments are the environment locations (Japan and USA) and some different Miscanthus genotypes. The propose was to compare if the evaluation result will be different at two locations.
Point 28: Line 178: Why not 23 Miscanthus genotypes?
Response 28: we are sorry that it was difficult to use the same 23 Miscanthus genotypes in BYU experiment because of the separate Miscanthus plants management. Therefore, we used 14 genotypes to carry out the experiment in BYU.
Point 29: Lines 194-199: Why these parameters were not measured in the first experiment? I suggest that the results from Table 4. be shown in the figure.
Response 29: The reason we did not use the portable photosynthesis system (LI-6400XT) to measure these photosynthesis parameters in the first experiment is that it would need too much to measure and it is difficult to carry out. For using LI-6400XT, it would take 5~10 minutes to measure one plant. Therefore, it would take around 11 hours to finish all measurement with total 138 pots in the first experiment. Considering to this reason, we choose to only use SPAD chlorophyll meter for measurement. And about Table 4, we consider that it is easier to show the results by Table style so we decide to keep Table 4.
Point 30: Lines 703-797: Please check all doi numbers carefully (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 15,
16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 are not active).
Also, references 29 and 37 have not doi please enter them.
Response 30: We revised the reference part, please check in the manuscript. About references 29 and 37, we are so sorry that we cannot find the doi.
Dear review editor,
Thank you for your precious suggestion. We revised the manuscript based on your advice. Your advice helps the manuscript be more easily understanding. We responded to your point one by one. Please check the following answers and the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Tzuya Weng
Point 1, 2&3: Line 23: Do not start a sentence with “it”. /Lines 23-24: Please explain locations of experiments. / Line 24: This genetic cluster you should mention in previous sentence, where you talk
about Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285.
Response 1, 2&3: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285, align with the M. sinensis ‘Yangtze-Qinling’ genetic cluster, had relatively high principal component analysis ranking values in both two locations experiments, Hokkaido University and Brigham Young University.
Point 4: Line 31: “However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels” – sounds better.
Response 4: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels.
Point 5: Lines 37-38: “Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for
successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions.” – sounds better. Also, after this sentence, please define what a bioenergy crops are.
Response 5: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, such as sugarcane and maize, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions
Point 6: Lines 42-43: Please delete “to drought” at the end of the sentence.
Response 6: We revised the sentence as the following:
To adapt and survive under drought stress, mechanisms involving drought resistance and drought recovery are key aspects of adaptations.
Point 7&8: Line 44: Strong drought tolerance is not acceptable definition. Please delete “strong”. / Lines 43-46: Please give some example.
Response 7&8: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 9: Lines 48-51: Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant
switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conductance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE) when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. – sounds better, but please explain what means positively correlated.
Response 9: We revised this part of the description as the following:
Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) genotypes was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conduct-ance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE), when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. It means that the performance of Pn can be regarded as the physiological response of plants under drought.
Point 10: Line 53: Reformulate this sentence. What are drought events?
Response 10: We revised the sentence as the following:
Extreme drought will likely increase in the future due to global warming.
Point 11: Lines 55-56: Are you talking about recovery or drought? Please write drought in
singular, no droughts.
Response 11: We were considering to describe the recovery from drought in this sentence. And we changed the word of “drought” in singular in the manuscript.
Point 12: Lines 62-63: In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought. – sounds better.
Response 12: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought.
Point 13: Lines 64-67: Please write the explanation.
Response 13: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 14: Lines 73-77: This is unclear and I think you should to provide a detail in Material and methods. You wrote that SMC will continue to decline. How do you mean that fixed soil moisture content decline if it is fixed?
Response 14: We are sorry for making you in confused. This paragraph (Line 72-80) described the changing of SWC in dry-down method. Next paragraph (Line 81-90) was description for the fixed SMC technique.
Point 15: Lines 78-82: What is SMS?
Response 15: We are so sorry for the mistake and revised the word as “SMC” in the manuscript.
Point 16: Lines 84-85: Unclear. Also, abbreviation SMC means soil moisture content not fixed soil moisture content
Response 16: We delete the sentence of Lines 84-85 and revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 17: Line 90: Delete “which is” and please reorganize too long sentence.
Response 17: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus, a C4 perennial rhizomatous grass, has high biomass productivity in marginal lands and expresses high CO2 fixation in low-temperature conditions, underscoring its potential as a bioenergy crop.
Point 18: Lines 101-102: Please explain how.
Response 18: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 19: Line 105: Please replace “Miscanthus” by “Miscanthus species”.
Response 19: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus species are considered to have stronger drought tolerance than another potential energy crop, switchgrass.
Point 20&21: Lines 112-117: Please join this paragraph with previous. / Lines 113-114: Sentence is not clear.
Response 20&21: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 22&23: Line 119: Please explain how drought affected this species. / Line 120: As mentioned above, M. × giganteus is not tolerant to drought – not necessary sentence.
Response 22&23: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 24: Lines 125-131: This is for “Material and methods”.
Response 24: We consider that it is important to show which kind of evaluate methodology we used in the present study. Therefore, we decide to keep this part in “Introduction”.
Point 25: Line 155: Please write with uppercase letter word “list”.
Response 25: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 26: Lines 168-169: SPAD chlorophyll meter (SPAD-502Plus, Konica Minolta, Osaka, Japan) – you should write this in Line 165 when you first mention the SPAD. Also write what does the SPAD measure, relative content of chlorophyll or?
Response 26: We revised this part of the description and added more explanation for what does the SPAD measure, please check in the manuscript.
Point 27: Line 177: What is the difference in these two experiments except the dry-down period repeating?
Response 27: About these two experiments, the dry-down experiment in Hokkaido University and the dry-down experiment in Brigham Young University, the experimental design and method were almost same. The difference in these two experiments are the environment locations (Japan and USA) and some different Miscanthus genotypes. The propose was to compare if the evaluation result will be different at two locations.
Point 28: Line 178: Why not 23 Miscanthus genotypes?
Response 28: we are sorry that it was difficult to use the same 23 Miscanthus genotypes in BYU experiment because of the separate Miscanthus plants management. Therefore, we used 14 genotypes to carry out the experiment in BYU.
Point 29: Lines 194-199: Why these parameters were not measured in the first experiment? I suggest that the results from Table 4. be shown in the figure.
Response 29: The reason we did not use the portable photosynthesis system (LI-6400XT) to measure these photosynthesis parameters in the first experiment is that it would need too much to measure and it is difficult to carry out. For using LI-6400XT, it would take 5~10 minutes to measure one plant. Therefore, it would take around 11 hours to finish all measurement with total 138 pots in the first experiment. Considering to this reason, we choose to only use SPAD chlorophyll meter for measurement. And about Table 4, we consider that it is easier to show the results by Table style so we decide to keep Table 4.
Point 30: Lines 703-797: Please check all doi numbers carefully (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 15,
16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 are not active).
Also, references 29 and 37 have not doi please enter them.
Response 30: We revised the reference part, please check in the manuscript. About references 29 and 37, we are so sorry that we cannot find the doi.
Dear review editor,
Thank you for your precious suggestion. We revised the manuscript based on your advice. Your advice helps the manuscript be more easily understanding. We responded to your point one by one. Please check the following answers and the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Tzuya Weng
Point 1, 2&3: Line 23: Do not start a sentence with “it”. /Lines 23-24: Please explain locations of experiments. / Line 24: This genetic cluster you should mention in previous sentence, where you talk
about Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285.
Response 1, 2&3: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285, align with the M. sinensis ‘Yangtze-Qinling’ genetic cluster, had relatively high principal component analysis ranking values in both two locations experiments, Hokkaido University and Brigham Young University.
Point 4: Line 31: “However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels” – sounds better.
Response 4: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels.
Point 5: Lines 37-38: “Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for
successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions.” – sounds better. Also, after this sentence, please define what a bioenergy crops are.
Response 5: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, such as sugarcane and maize, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions
Point 6: Lines 42-43: Please delete “to drought” at the end of the sentence.
Response 6: We revised the sentence as the following:
To adapt and survive under drought stress, mechanisms involving drought resistance and drought recovery are key aspects of adaptations.
Point 7&8: Line 44: Strong drought tolerance is not acceptable definition. Please delete “strong”. / Lines 43-46: Please give some example.
Response 7&8: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 9: Lines 48-51: Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant
switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conductance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE) when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. – sounds better, but please explain what means positively correlated.
Response 9: We revised this part of the description as the following:
Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) genotypes was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conduct-ance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE), when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. It means that the performance of Pn can be regarded as the physiological response of plants under drought.
Point 10: Line 53: Reformulate this sentence. What are drought events?
Response 10: We revised the sentence as the following:
Extreme drought will likely increase in the future due to global warming.
Point 11: Lines 55-56: Are you talking about recovery or drought? Please write drought in
singular, no droughts.
Response 11: We were considering to describe the recovery from drought in this sentence. And we changed the word of “drought” in singular in the manuscript.
Point 12: Lines 62-63: In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought. – sounds better.
Response 12: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought.
Point 13: Lines 64-67: Please write the explanation.
Response 13: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 14: Lines 73-77: This is unclear and I think you should to provide a detail in Material and methods. You wrote that SMC will continue to decline. How do you mean that fixed soil moisture content decline if it is fixed?
Response 14: We are sorry for making you in confused. This paragraph (Line 72-80) described the changing of SWC in dry-down method. Next paragraph (Line 81-90) was description for the fixed SMC technique.
Point 15: Lines 78-82: What is SMS?
Response 15: We are so sorry for the mistake and revised the word as “SMC” in the manuscript.
Point 16: Lines 84-85: Unclear. Also, abbreviation SMC means soil moisture content not fixed soil moisture content
Response 16: We delete the sentence of Lines 84-85 and revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 17: Line 90: Delete “which is” and please reorganize too long sentence.
Response 17: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus, a C4 perennial rhizomatous grass, has high biomass productivity in marginal lands and expresses high CO2 fixation in low-temperature conditions, underscoring its potential as a bioenergy crop.
Point 18: Lines 101-102: Please explain how.
Response 18: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 19: Line 105: Please replace “Miscanthus” by “Miscanthus species”.
Response 19: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus species are considered to have stronger drought tolerance than another potential energy crop, switchgrass.
Point 20&21: Lines 112-117: Please join this paragraph with previous. / Lines 113-114: Sentence is not clear.
Response 20&21: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 22&23: Line 119: Please explain how drought affected this species. / Line 120: As mentioned above, M. × giganteus is not tolerant to drought – not necessary sentence.
Response 22&23: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 24: Lines 125-131: This is for “Material and methods”.
Response 24: We consider that it is important to show which kind of evaluate methodology we used in the present study. Therefore, we decide to keep this part in “Introduction”.
Point 25: Line 155: Please write with uppercase letter word “list”.
Response 25: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 26: Lines 168-169: SPAD chlorophyll meter (SPAD-502Plus, Konica Minolta, Osaka, Japan) – you should write this in Line 165 when you first mention the SPAD. Also write what does the SPAD measure, relative content of chlorophyll or?
Response 26: We revised this part of the description and added more explanation for what does the SPAD measure, please check in the manuscript.
Point 27: Line 177: What is the difference in these two experiments except the dry-down period repeating?
Response 27: About these two experiments, the dry-down experiment in Hokkaido University and the dry-down experiment in Brigham Young University, the experimental design and method were almost same. The difference in these two experiments are the environment locations (Japan and USA) and some different Miscanthus genotypes. The propose was to compare if the evaluation result will be different at two locations.
Point 28: Line 178: Why not 23 Miscanthus genotypes?
Response 28: we are sorry that it was difficult to use the same 23 Miscanthus genotypes in BYU experiment because of the separate Miscanthus plants management. Therefore, we used 14 genotypes to carry out the experiment in BYU.
Point 29: Lines 194-199: Why these parameters were not measured in the first experiment? I suggest that the results from Table 4. be shown in the figure.
Response 29: The reason we did not use the portable photosynthesis system (LI-6400XT) to measure these photosynthesis parameters in the first experiment is that it would need too much to measure and it is difficult to carry out. For using LI-6400XT, it would take 5~10 minutes to measure one plant. Therefore, it would take around 11 hours to finish all measurement with total 138 pots in the first experiment. Considering to this reason, we choose to only use SPAD chlorophyll meter for measurement. And about Table 4, we consider that it is easier to show the results by Table style so we decide to keep Table 4.
Point 30: Lines 703-797: Please check all doi numbers carefully (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 15,
16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 are not active).
Also, references 29 and 37 have not doi please enter them.
Response 30: We revised the reference part, please check in the manuscript. About references 29 and 37, we are so sorry that we cannot find the doi.
Dear review editor,
Thank you for your precious suggestion. We revised the manuscript based on your advice. Your advice helps the manuscript be more easily understanding. We responded to your point one by one. Please check the following answers and the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Tzuya Weng
Point 1, 2&3: Line 23: Do not start a sentence with “it”. /Lines 23-24: Please explain locations of experiments. / Line 24: This genetic cluster you should mention in previous sentence, where you talk
about Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285.
Response 1, 2&3: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285, align with the M. sinensis ‘Yangtze-Qinling’ genetic cluster, had relatively high principal component analysis ranking values in both two locations experiments, Hokkaido University and Brigham Young University.
Point 4: Line 31: “However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels” – sounds better.
Response 4: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels.
Point 5: Lines 37-38: “Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for
successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions.” – sounds better. Also, after this sentence, please define what a bioenergy crops are.
Response 5: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, such as sugarcane and maize, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions
Point 6: Lines 42-43: Please delete “to drought” at the end of the sentence.
Response 6: We revised the sentence as the following:
To adapt and survive under drought stress, mechanisms involving drought resistance and drought recovery are key aspects of adaptations.
Point 7&8: Line 44: Strong drought tolerance is not acceptable definition. Please delete “strong”. / Lines 43-46: Please give some example.
Response 7&8: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 9: Lines 48-51: Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant
switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conductance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE) when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. – sounds better, but please explain what means positively correlated.
Response 9: We revised this part of the description as the following:
Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) genotypes was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conduct-ance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE), when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. It means that the performance of Pn can be regarded as the physiological response of plants under drought.
Point 10: Line 53: Reformulate this sentence. What are drought events?
Response 10: We revised the sentence as the following:
Extreme drought will likely increase in the future due to global warming.
Point 11: Lines 55-56: Are you talking about recovery or drought? Please write drought in
singular, no droughts.
Response 11: We were considering to describe the recovery from drought in this sentence. And we changed the word of “drought” in singular in the manuscript.
Point 12: Lines 62-63: In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought. – sounds better.
Response 12: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought.
Point 13: Lines 64-67: Please write the explanation.
Response 13: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 14: Lines 73-77: This is unclear and I think you should to provide a detail in Material and methods. You wrote that SMC will continue to decline. How do you mean that fixed soil moisture content decline if it is fixed?
Response 14: We are sorry for making you in confused. This paragraph (Line 72-80) described the changing of SWC in dry-down method. Next paragraph (Line 81-90) was description for the fixed SMC technique.
Point 15: Lines 78-82: What is SMS?
Response 15: We are so sorry for the mistake and revised the word as “SMC” in the manuscript.
Point 16: Lines 84-85: Unclear. Also, abbreviation SMC means soil moisture content not fixed soil moisture content
Response 16: We delete the sentence of Lines 84-85 and revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 17: Line 90: Delete “which is” and please reorganize too long sentence.
Response 17: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus, a C4 perennial rhizomatous grass, has high biomass productivity in marginal lands and expresses high CO2 fixation in low-temperature conditions, underscoring its potential as a bioenergy crop.
Point 18: Lines 101-102: Please explain how.
Response 18: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 19: Line 105: Please replace “Miscanthus” by “Miscanthus species”.
Response 19: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus species are considered to have stronger drought tolerance than another potential energy crop, switchgrass.
Point 20&21: Lines 112-117: Please join this paragraph with previous. / Lines 113-114: Sentence is not clear.
Response 20&21: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 22&23: Line 119: Please explain how drought affected this species. / Line 120: As mentioned above, M. × giganteus is not tolerant to drought – not necessary sentence.
Response 22&23: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 24: Lines 125-131: This is for “Material and methods”.
Response 24: We consider that it is important to show which kind of evaluate methodology we used in the present study. Therefore, we decide to keep this part in “Introduction”.
Point 25: Line 155: Please write with uppercase letter word “list”.
Response 25: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 26: Lines 168-169: SPAD chlorophyll meter (SPAD-502Plus, Konica Minolta, Osaka, Japan) – you should write this in Line 165 when you first mention the SPAD. Also write what does the SPAD measure, relative content of chlorophyll or?
Response 26: We revised this part of the description and added more explanation for what does the SPAD measure, please check in the manuscript.
Point 27: Line 177: What is the difference in these two experiments except the dry-down period repeating?
Response 27: About these two experiments, the dry-down experiment in Hokkaido University and the dry-down experiment in Brigham Young University, the experimental design and method were almost same. The difference in these two experiments are the environment locations (Japan and USA) and some different Miscanthus genotypes. The propose was to compare if the evaluation result will be different at two locations.
Point 28: Line 178: Why not 23 Miscanthus genotypes?
Response 28: we are sorry that it was difficult to use the same 23 Miscanthus genotypes in BYU experiment because of the separate Miscanthus plants management. Therefore, we used 14 genotypes to carry out the experiment in BYU.
Point 29: Lines 194-199: Why these parameters were not measured in the first experiment? I suggest that the results from Table 4. be shown in the figure.
Response 29: The reason we did not use the portable photosynthesis system (LI-6400XT) to measure these photosynthesis parameters in the first experiment is that it would need too much to measure and it is difficult to carry out. For using LI-6400XT, it would take 5~10 minutes to measure one plant. Therefore, it would take around 11 hours to finish all measurement with total 138 pots in the first experiment. Considering to this reason, we choose to only use SPAD chlorophyll meter for measurement. And about Table 4, we consider that it is easier to show the results by Table style so we decide to keep Table 4.
Point 30: Lines 703-797: Please check all doi numbers carefully (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 15,
16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 are not active).
Also, references 29 and 37 have not doi please enter them.
Response 30: We revised the reference part, please check in the manuscript. About references 29 and 37, we are so sorry that we cannot find the doi.
Dear review editor,
Thank you for your precious suggestion. We revised the manuscript based on your advice. Your advice helps the manuscript be more easily understanding. We responded to your point one by one. Please check the following answers and the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Tzuya Weng
Point 1, 2&3: Line 23: Do not start a sentence with “it”. /Lines 23-24: Please explain locations of experiments. / Line 24: This genetic cluster you should mention in previous sentence, where you talk
about Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285.
Response 1, 2&3: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285, align with the M. sinensis ‘Yangtze-Qinling’ genetic cluster, had relatively high principal component analysis ranking values in both two locations experiments, Hokkaido University and Brigham Young University.
Point 4: Line 31: “However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels” – sounds better.
Response 4: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels.
Point 5: Lines 37-38: “Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for
successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions.” – sounds better. Also, after this sentence, please define what a bioenergy crops are.
Response 5: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, such as sugarcane and maize, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions
Point 6: Lines 42-43: Please delete “to drought” at the end of the sentence.
Response 6: We revised the sentence as the following:
To adapt and survive under drought stress, mechanisms involving drought resistance and drought recovery are key aspects of adaptations.
Point 7&8: Line 44: Strong drought tolerance is not acceptable definition. Please delete “strong”. / Lines 43-46: Please give some example.
Response 7&8: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 9: Lines 48-51: Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant
switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conductance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE) when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. – sounds better, but please explain what means positively correlated.
Response 9: We revised this part of the description as the following:
Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) genotypes was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conduct-ance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE), when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. It means that the performance of Pn can be regarded as the physiological response of plants under drought.
Point 10: Line 53: Reformulate this sentence. What are drought events?
Response 10: We revised the sentence as the following:
Extreme drought will likely increase in the future due to global warming.
Point 11: Lines 55-56: Are you talking about recovery or drought? Please write drought in
singular, no droughts.
Response 11: We were considering to describe the recovery from drought in this sentence. And we changed the word of “drought” in singular in the manuscript.
Point 12: Lines 62-63: In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought. – sounds better.
Response 12: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought.
Point 13: Lines 64-67: Please write the explanation.
Response 13: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 14: Lines 73-77: This is unclear and I think you should to provide a detail in Material and methods. You wrote that SMC will continue to decline. How do you mean that fixed soil moisture content decline if it is fixed?
Response 14: We are sorry for making you in confused. This paragraph (Line 72-80) described the changing of SWC in dry-down method. Next paragraph (Line 81-90) was description for the fixed SMC technique.
Point 15: Lines 78-82: What is SMS?
Response 15: We are so sorry for the mistake and revised the word as “SMC” in the manuscript.
Point 16: Lines 84-85: Unclear. Also, abbreviation SMC means soil moisture content not fixed soil moisture content
Response 16: We delete the sentence of Lines 84-85 and revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 17: Line 90: Delete “which is” and please reorganize too long sentence.
Response 17: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus, a C4 perennial rhizomatous grass, has high biomass productivity in marginal lands and expresses high CO2 fixation in low-temperature conditions, underscoring its potential as a bioenergy crop.
Point 18: Lines 101-102: Please explain how.
Response 18: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 19: Line 105: Please replace “Miscanthus” by “Miscanthus species”.
Response 19: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus species are considered to have stronger drought tolerance than another potential energy crop, switchgrass.
Point 20&21: Lines 112-117: Please join this paragraph with previous. / Lines 113-114: Sentence is not clear.
Response 20&21: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 22&23: Line 119: Please explain how drought affected this species. / Line 120: As mentioned above, M. × giganteus is not tolerant to drought – not necessary sentence.
Response 22&23: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 24: Lines 125-131: This is for “Material and methods”.
Response 24: We consider that it is important to show which kind of evaluate methodology we used in the present study. Therefore, we decide to keep this part in “Introduction”.
Point 25: Line 155: Please write with uppercase letter word “list”.
Response 25: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 26: Lines 168-169: SPAD chlorophyll meter (SPAD-502Plus, Konica Minolta, Osaka, Japan) – you should write this in Line 165 when you first mention the SPAD. Also write what does the SPAD measure, relative content of chlorophyll or?
Response 26: We revised this part of the description and added more explanation for what does the SPAD measure, please check in the manuscript.
Point 27: Line 177: What is the difference in these two experiments except the dry-down period repeating?
Response 27: About these two experiments, the dry-down experiment in Hokkaido University and the dry-down experiment in Brigham Young University, the experimental design and method were almost same. The difference in these two experiments are the environment locations (Japan and USA) and some different Miscanthus genotypes. The propose was to compare if the evaluation result will be different at two locations.
Point 28: Line 178: Why not 23 Miscanthus genotypes?
Response 28: we are sorry that it was difficult to use the same 23 Miscanthus genotypes in BYU experiment because of the separate Miscanthus plants management. Therefore, we used 14 genotypes to carry out the experiment in BYU.
Point 29: Lines 194-199: Why these parameters were not measured in the first experiment? I suggest that the results from Table 4. be shown in the figure.
Response 29: The reason we did not use the portable photosynthesis system (LI-6400XT) to measure these photosynthesis parameters in the first experiment is that it would need too much to measure and it is difficult to carry out. For using LI-6400XT, it would take 5~10 minutes to measure one plant. Therefore, it would take around 11 hours to finish all measurement with total 138 pots in the first experiment. Considering to this reason, we choose to only use SPAD chlorophyll meter for measurement. And about Table 4, we consider that it is easier to show the results by Table style so we decide to keep Table 4.
Point 30: Lines 703-797: Please check all doi numbers carefully (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 15,
16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 are not active).
Also, references 29 and 37 have not doi please enter them.
Response 30: We revised the reference part, please check in the manuscript. About references 29 and 37, we are so sorry that we cannot find the doi.
Dear review editor,
Thank you for your precious suggestion. We revised the manuscript based on your advice. Your advice helps the manuscript be more easily understanding. We responded to your point one by one. Please check the following answers and the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Tzuya Weng
Point 1, 2&3: Line 23: Do not start a sentence with “it”. /Lines 23-24: Please explain locations of experiments. / Line 24: This genetic cluster you should mention in previous sentence, where you talk
about Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285.
Response 1, 2&3: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285, align with the M. sinensis ‘Yangtze-Qinling’ genetic cluster, had relatively high principal component analysis ranking values in both two locations experiments, Hokkaido University and Brigham Young University.
Point 4: Line 31: “However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels” – sounds better.
Response 4: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels.
Point 5: Lines 37-38: “Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for
successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions.” – sounds better. Also, after this sentence, please define what a bioenergy crops are.
Response 5: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, such as sugarcane and maize, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions
Point 6: Lines 42-43: Please delete “to drought” at the end of the sentence.
Response 6: We revised the sentence as the following:
To adapt and survive under drought stress, mechanisms involving drought resistance and drought recovery are key aspects of adaptations.
Point 7&8: Line 44: Strong drought tolerance is not acceptable definition. Please delete “strong”. / Lines 43-46: Please give some example.
Response 7&8: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 9: Lines 48-51: Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant
switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conductance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE) when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. – sounds better, but please explain what means positively correlated.
Response 9: We revised this part of the description as the following:
Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) genotypes was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conduct-ance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE), when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. It means that the performance of Pn can be regarded as the physiological response of plants under drought.
Point 10: Line 53: Reformulate this sentence. What are drought events?
Response 10: We revised the sentence as the following:
Extreme drought will likely increase in the future due to global warming.
Point 11: Lines 55-56: Are you talking about recovery or drought? Please write drought in
singular, no droughts.
Response 11: We were considering to describe the recovery from drought in this sentence. And we changed the word of “drought” in singular in the manuscript.
Point 12: Lines 62-63: In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought. – sounds better.
Response 12: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought.
Point 13: Lines 64-67: Please write the explanation.
Response 13: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 14: Lines 73-77: This is unclear and I think you should to provide a detail in Material and methods. You wrote that SMC will continue to decline. How do you mean that fixed soil moisture content decline if it is fixed?
Response 14: We are sorry for making you in confused. This paragraph (Line 72-80) described the changing of SWC in dry-down method. Next paragraph (Line 81-90) was description for the fixed SMC technique.
Point 15: Lines 78-82: What is SMS?
Response 15: We are so sorry for the mistake and revised the word as “SMC” in the manuscript.
Point 16: Lines 84-85: Unclear. Also, abbreviation SMC means soil moisture content not fixed soil moisture content
Response 16: We delete the sentence of Lines 84-85 and revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 17: Line 90: Delete “which is” and please reorganize too long sentence.
Response 17: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus, a C4 perennial rhizomatous grass, has high biomass productivity in marginal lands and expresses high CO2 fixation in low-temperature conditions, underscoring its potential as a bioenergy crop.
Point 18: Lines 101-102: Please explain how.
Response 18: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 19: Line 105: Please replace “Miscanthus” by “Miscanthus species”.
Response 19: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus species are considered to have stronger drought tolerance than another potential energy crop, switchgrass.
Point 20&21: Lines 112-117: Please join this paragraph with previous. / Lines 113-114: Sentence is not clear.
Response 20&21: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 22&23: Line 119: Please explain how drought affected this species. / Line 120: As mentioned above, M. × giganteus is not tolerant to drought – not necessary sentence.
Response 22&23: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 24: Lines 125-131: This is for “Material and methods”.
Response 24: We consider that it is important to show which kind of evaluate methodology we used in the present study. Therefore, we decide to keep this part in “Introduction”.
Point 25: Line 155: Please write with uppercase letter word “list”.
Response 25: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 26: Lines 168-169: SPAD chlorophyll meter (SPAD-502Plus, Konica Minolta, Osaka, Japan) – you should write this in Line 165 when you first mention the SPAD. Also write what does the SPAD measure, relative content of chlorophyll or?
Response 26: We revised this part of the description and added more explanation for what does the SPAD measure, please check in the manuscript.
Point 27: Line 177: What is the difference in these two experiments except the dry-down period repeating?
Response 27: About these two experiments, the dry-down experiment in Hokkaido University and the dry-down experiment in Brigham Young University, the experimental design and method were almost same. The difference in these two experiments are the environment locations (Japan and USA) and some different Miscanthus genotypes. The propose was to compare if the evaluation result will be different at two locations.
Point 28: Line 178: Why not 23 Miscanthus genotypes?
Response 28: we are sorry that it was difficult to use the same 23 Miscanthus genotypes in BYU experiment because of the separate Miscanthus plants management. Therefore, we used 14 genotypes to carry out the experiment in BYU.
Point 29: Lines 194-199: Why these parameters were not measured in the first experiment? I suggest that the results from Table 4. be shown in the figure.
Response 29: The reason we did not use the portable photosynthesis system (LI-6400XT) to measure these photosynthesis parameters in the first experiment is that it would need too much to measure and it is difficult to carry out. For using LI-6400XT, it would take 5~10 minutes to measure one plant. Therefore, it would take around 11 hours to finish all measurement with total 138 pots in the first experiment. Considering to this reason, we choose to only use SPAD chlorophyll meter for measurement. And about Table 4, we consider that it is easier to show the results by Table style so we decide to keep Table 4.
Point 30: Lines 703-797: Please check all doi numbers carefully (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 15,
16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 are not active).
Also, references 29 and 37 have not doi please enter them.
Response 30: We revised the reference part, please check in the manuscript. About references 29 and 37, we are so sorry that we cannot find the doi.
Dear review editor,
Thank you for your precious suggestion. We revised the manuscript based on your advice. Your advice helps the manuscript be more easily understanding. We responded to your point one by one. Please check the following answers and the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Tzuya Weng
Point 1, 2&3: Line 23: Do not start a sentence with “it”. /Lines 23-24: Please explain locations of experiments. / Line 24: This genetic cluster you should mention in previous sentence, where you talk
about Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285.
Response 1, 2&3: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285, align with the M. sinensis ‘Yangtze-Qinling’ genetic cluster, had relatively high principal component analysis ranking values in both two locations experiments, Hokkaido University and Brigham Young University.
Point 4: Line 31: “However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels” – sounds better.
Response 4: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels.
Point 5: Lines 37-38: “Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for
successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions.” – sounds better. Also, after this sentence, please define what a bioenergy crops are.
Response 5: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, such as sugarcane and maize, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions
Point 6: Lines 42-43: Please delete “to drought” at the end of the sentence.
Response 6: We revised the sentence as the following:
To adapt and survive under drought stress, mechanisms involving drought resistance and drought recovery are key aspects of adaptations.
Point 7&8: Line 44: Strong drought tolerance is not acceptable definition. Please delete “strong”. / Lines 43-46: Please give some example.
Response 7&8: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 9: Lines 48-51: Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant
switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conductance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE) when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. – sounds better, but please explain what means positively correlated.
Response 9: We revised this part of the description as the following:
Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) genotypes was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conduct-ance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE), when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. It means that the performance of Pn can be regarded as the physiological response of plants under drought.
Point 10: Line 53: Reformulate this sentence. What are drought events?
Response 10: We revised the sentence as the following:
Extreme drought will likely increase in the future due to global warming.
Point 11: Lines 55-56: Are you talking about recovery or drought? Please write drought in
singular, no droughts.
Response 11: We were considering to describe the recovery from drought in this sentence. And we changed the word of “drought” in singular in the manuscript.
Point 12: Lines 62-63: In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought. – sounds better.
Response 12: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought.
Point 13: Lines 64-67: Please write the explanation.
Response 13: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 14: Lines 73-77: This is unclear and I think you should to provide a detail in Material and methods. You wrote that SMC will continue to decline. How do you mean that fixed soil moisture content decline if it is fixed?
Response 14: We are sorry for making you in confused. This paragraph (Line 72-80) described the changing of SWC in dry-down method. Next paragraph (Line 81-90) was description for the fixed SMC technique.
Point 15: Lines 78-82: What is SMS?
Response 15: We are so sorry for the mistake and revised the word as “SMC” in the manuscript.
Point 16: Lines 84-85: Unclear. Also, abbreviation SMC means soil moisture content not fixed soil moisture content
Response 16: We delete the sentence of Lines 84-85 and revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 17: Line 90: Delete “which is” and please reorganize too long sentence.
Response 17: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus, a C4 perennial rhizomatous grass, has high biomass productivity in marginal lands and expresses high CO2 fixation in low-temperature conditions, underscoring its potential as a bioenergy crop.
Point 18: Lines 101-102: Please explain how.
Response 18: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 19: Line 105: Please replace “Miscanthus” by “Miscanthus species”.
Response 19: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus species are considered to have stronger drought tolerance than another potential energy crop, switchgrass.
Point 20&21: Lines 112-117: Please join this paragraph with previous. / Lines 113-114: Sentence is not clear.
Response 20&21: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 22&23: Line 119: Please explain how drought affected this species. / Line 120: As mentioned above, M. × giganteus is not tolerant to drought – not necessary sentence.
Response 22&23: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 24: Lines 125-131: This is for “Material and methods”.
Response 24: We consider that it is important to show which kind of evaluate methodology we used in the present study. Therefore, we decide to keep this part in “Introduction”.
Point 25: Line 155: Please write with uppercase letter word “list”.
Response 25: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 26: Lines 168-169: SPAD chlorophyll meter (SPAD-502Plus, Konica Minolta, Osaka, Japan) – you should write this in Line 165 when you first mention the SPAD. Also write what does the SPAD measure, relative content of chlorophyll or?
Response 26: We revised this part of the description and added more explanation for what does the SPAD measure, please check in the manuscript.
Point 27: Line 177: What is the difference in these two experiments except the dry-down period repeating?
Response 27: About these two experiments, the dry-down experiment in Hokkaido University and the dry-down experiment in Brigham Young University, the experimental design and method were almost same. The difference in these two experiments are the environment locations (Japan and USA) and some different Miscanthus genotypes. The propose was to compare if the evaluation result will be different at two locations.
Point 28: Line 178: Why not 23 Miscanthus genotypes?
Response 28: we are sorry that it was difficult to use the same 23 Miscanthus genotypes in BYU experiment because of the separate Miscanthus plants management. Therefore, we used 14 genotypes to carry out the experiment in BYU.
Point 29: Lines 194-199: Why these parameters were not measured in the first experiment? I suggest that the results from Table 4. be shown in the figure.
Response 29: The reason we did not use the portable photosynthesis system (LI-6400XT) to measure these photosynthesis parameters in the first experiment is that it would need too much to measure and it is difficult to carry out. For using LI-6400XT, it would take 5~10 minutes to measure one plant. Therefore, it would take around 11 hours to finish all measurement with total 138 pots in the first experiment. Considering to this reason, we choose to only use SPAD chlorophyll meter for measurement. And about Table 4, we consider that it is easier to show the results by Table style so we decide to keep Table 4.
Point 30: Lines 703-797: Please check all doi numbers carefully (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 15,
16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 are not active).
Also, references 29 and 37 have not doi please enter them.
Response 30: We revised the reference part, please check in the manuscript. About references 29 and 37, we are so sorry that we cannot find the doi.
Dear review editor,
Thank you for your precious suggestion. We revised the manuscript based on your advice. Your advice helps the manuscript be more easily understanding. We responded to your point one by one. Please check the following answers and the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Tzuya Weng
Point 1, 2&3: Line 23: Do not start a sentence with “it”. /Lines 23-24: Please explain locations of experiments. / Line 24: This genetic cluster you should mention in previous sentence, where you talk
about Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285.
Response 1, 2&3: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285, align with the M. sinensis ‘Yangtze-Qinling’ genetic cluster, had relatively high principal component analysis ranking values in both two locations experiments, Hokkaido University and Brigham Young University.
Point 4: Line 31: “However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels” – sounds better.
Response 4: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels.
Point 5: Lines 37-38: “Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for
successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions.” – sounds better. Also, after this sentence, please define what a bioenergy crops are.
Response 5: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, such as sugarcane and maize, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions
Point 6: Lines 42-43: Please delete “to drought” at the end of the sentence.
Response 6: We revised the sentence as the following:
To adapt and survive under drought stress, mechanisms involving drought resistance and drought recovery are key aspects of adaptations.
Point 7&8: Line 44: Strong drought tolerance is not acceptable definition. Please delete “strong”. / Lines 43-46: Please give some example.
Response 7&8: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 9: Lines 48-51: Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant
switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conductance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE) when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. – sounds better, but please explain what means positively correlated.
Response 9: We revised this part of the description as the following:
Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) genotypes was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conduct-ance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE), when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. It means that the performance of Pn can be regarded as the physiological response of plants under drought.
Point 10: Line 53: Reformulate this sentence. What are drought events?
Response 10: We revised the sentence as the following:
Extreme drought will likely increase in the future due to global warming.
Point 11: Lines 55-56: Are you talking about recovery or drought? Please write drought in
singular, no droughts.
Response 11: We were considering to describe the recovery from drought in this sentence. And we changed the word of “drought” in singular in the manuscript.
Point 12: Lines 62-63: In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought. – sounds better.
Response 12: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought.
Point 13: Lines 64-67: Please write the explanation.
Response 13: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 14: Lines 73-77: This is unclear and I think you should to provide a detail in Material and methods. You wrote that SMC will continue to decline. How do you mean that fixed soil moisture content decline if it is fixed?
Response 14: We are sorry for making you in confused. This paragraph (Line 72-80) described the changing of SWC in dry-down method. Next paragraph (Line 81-90) was description for the fixed SMC technique.
Point 15: Lines 78-82: What is SMS?
Response 15: We are so sorry for the mistake and revised the word as “SMC” in the manuscript.
Point 16: Lines 84-85: Unclear. Also, abbreviation SMC means soil moisture content not fixed soil moisture content
Response 16: We delete the sentence of Lines 84-85 and revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 17: Line 90: Delete “which is” and please reorganize too long sentence.
Response 17: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus, a C4 perennial rhizomatous grass, has high biomass productivity in marginal lands and expresses high CO2 fixation in low-temperature conditions, underscoring its potential as a bioenergy crop.
Point 18: Lines 101-102: Please explain how.
Response 18: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 19: Line 105: Please replace “Miscanthus” by “Miscanthus species”.
Response 19: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus species are considered to have stronger drought tolerance than another potential energy crop, switchgrass.
Point 20&21: Lines 112-117: Please join this paragraph with previous. / Lines 113-114: Sentence is not clear.
Response 20&21: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 22&23: Line 119: Please explain how drought affected this species. / Line 120: As mentioned above, M. × giganteus is not tolerant to drought – not necessary sentence.
Response 22&23: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 24: Lines 125-131: This is for “Material and methods”.
Response 24: We consider that it is important to show which kind of evaluate methodology we used in the present study. Therefore, we decide to keep this part in “Introduction”.
Point 25: Line 155: Please write with uppercase letter word “list”.
Response 25: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 26: Lines 168-169: SPAD chlorophyll meter (SPAD-502Plus, Konica Minolta, Osaka, Japan) – you should write this in Line 165 when you first mention the SPAD. Also write what does the SPAD measure, relative content of chlorophyll or?
Response 26: We revised this part of the description and added more explanation for what does the SPAD measure, please check in the manuscript.
Point 27: Line 177: What is the difference in these two experiments except the dry-down period repeating?
Response 27: About these two experiments, the dry-down experiment in Hokkaido University and the dry-down experiment in Brigham Young University, the experimental design and method were almost same. The difference in these two experiments are the environment locations (Japan and USA) and some different Miscanthus genotypes. The propose was to compare if the evaluation result will be different at two locations.
Point 28: Line 178: Why not 23 Miscanthus genotypes?
Response 28: we are sorry that it was difficult to use the same 23 Miscanthus genotypes in BYU experiment because of the separate Miscanthus plants management. Therefore, we used 14 genotypes to carry out the experiment in BYU.
Point 29: Lines 194-199: Why these parameters were not measured in the first experiment? I suggest that the results from Table 4. be shown in the figure.
Response 29: The reason we did not use the portable photosynthesis system (LI-6400XT) to measure these photosynthesis parameters in the first experiment is that it would need too much to measure and it is difficult to carry out. For using LI-6400XT, it would take 5~10 minutes to measure one plant. Therefore, it would take around 11 hours to finish all measurement with total 138 pots in the first experiment. Considering to this reason, we choose to only use SPAD chlorophyll meter for measurement. And about Table 4, we consider that it is easier to show the results by Table style so we decide to keep Table 4.
Point 30: Lines 703-797: Please check all doi numbers carefully (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 15,
16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 are not active).
Also, references 29 and 37 have not doi please enter them.
Response 30: We revised the reference part, please check in the manuscript. About references 29 and 37, we are so sorry that we cannot find the doi.
Dear review editor,
Thank you for your precious suggestion. We revised the manuscript based on your advice. Your advice helps the manuscript be more easily understanding. We responded to your point one by one. Please check the following answers and the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Tzuya Weng
Point 1, 2&3: Line 23: Do not start a sentence with “it”. /Lines 23-24: Please explain locations of experiments. / Line 24: This genetic cluster you should mention in previous sentence, where you talk
about Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285.
Response 1, 2&3: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285, align with the M. sinensis ‘Yangtze-Qinling’ genetic cluster, had relatively high principal component analysis ranking values in both two locations experiments, Hokkaido University and Brigham Young University.
Point 4: Line 31: “However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels” – sounds better.
Response 4: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels.
Point 5: Lines 37-38: “Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for
successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions.” – sounds better. Also, after this sentence, please define what a bioenergy crops are.
Response 5: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, such as sugarcane and maize, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions
Point 6: Lines 42-43: Please delete “to drought” at the end of the sentence.
Response 6: We revised the sentence as the following:
To adapt and survive under drought stress, mechanisms involving drought resistance and drought recovery are key aspects of adaptations.
Point 7&8: Line 44: Strong drought tolerance is not acceptable definition. Please delete “strong”. / Lines 43-46: Please give some example.
Response 7&8: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 9: Lines 48-51: Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant
switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conductance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE) when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. – sounds better, but please explain what means positively correlated.
Response 9: We revised this part of the description as the following:
Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) genotypes was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conduct-ance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE), when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. It means that the performance of Pn can be regarded as the physiological response of plants under drought.
Point 10: Line 53: Reformulate this sentence. What are drought events?
Response 10: We revised the sentence as the following:
Extreme drought will likely increase in the future due to global warming.
Point 11: Lines 55-56: Are you talking about recovery or drought? Please write drought in
singular, no droughts.
Response 11: We were considering to describe the recovery from drought in this sentence. And we changed the word of “drought” in singular in the manuscript.
Point 12: Lines 62-63: In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought. – sounds better.
Response 12: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought.
Point 13: Lines 64-67: Please write the explanation.
Response 13: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 14: Lines 73-77: This is unclear and I think you should to provide a detail in Material and methods. You wrote that SMC will continue to decline. How do you mean that fixed soil moisture content decline if it is fixed?
Response 14: We are sorry for making you in confused. This paragraph (Line 72-80) described the changing of SWC in dry-down method. Next paragraph (Line 81-90) was description for the fixed SMC technique.
Point 15: Lines 78-82: What is SMS?
Response 15: We are so sorry for the mistake and revised the word as “SMC” in the manuscript.
Point 16: Lines 84-85: Unclear. Also, abbreviation SMC means soil moisture content not fixed soil moisture content
Response 16: We delete the sentence of Lines 84-85 and revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 17: Line 90: Delete “which is” and please reorganize too long sentence.
Response 17: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus, a C4 perennial rhizomatous grass, has high biomass productivity in marginal lands and expresses high CO2 fixation in low-temperature conditions, underscoring its potential as a bioenergy crop.
Point 18: Lines 101-102: Please explain how.
Response 18: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 19: Line 105: Please replace “Miscanthus” by “Miscanthus species”.
Response 19: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus species are considered to have stronger drought tolerance than another potential energy crop, switchgrass.
Point 20&21: Lines 112-117: Please join this paragraph with previous. / Lines 113-114: Sentence is not clear.
Response 20&21: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 22&23: Line 119: Please explain how drought affected this species. / Line 120: As mentioned above, M. × giganteus is not tolerant to drought – not necessary sentence.
Response 22&23: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 24: Lines 125-131: This is for “Material and methods”.
Response 24: We consider that it is important to show which kind of evaluate methodology we used in the present study. Therefore, we decide to keep this part in “Introduction”.
Point 25: Line 155: Please write with uppercase letter word “list”.
Response 25: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 26: Lines 168-169: SPAD chlorophyll meter (SPAD-502Plus, Konica Minolta, Osaka, Japan) – you should write this in Line 165 when you first mention the SPAD. Also write what does the SPAD measure, relative content of chlorophyll or?
Response 26: We revised this part of the description and added more explanation for what does the SPAD measure, please check in the manuscript.
Point 27: Line 177: What is the difference in these two experiments except the dry-down period repeating?
Response 27: About these two experiments, the dry-down experiment in Hokkaido University and the dry-down experiment in Brigham Young University, the experimental design and method were almost same. The difference in these two experiments are the environment locations (Japan and USA) and some different Miscanthus genotypes. The propose was to compare if the evaluation result will be different at two locations.
Point 28: Line 178: Why not 23 Miscanthus genotypes?
Response 28: we are sorry that it was difficult to use the same 23 Miscanthus genotypes in BYU experiment because of the separate Miscanthus plants management. Therefore, we used 14 genotypes to carry out the experiment in BYU.
Point 29: Lines 194-199: Why these parameters were not measured in the first experiment? I suggest that the results from Table 4. be shown in the figure.
Response 29: The reason we did not use the portable photosynthesis system (LI-6400XT) to measure these photosynthesis parameters in the first experiment is that it would need too much to measure and it is difficult to carry out. For using LI-6400XT, it would take 5~10 minutes to measure one plant. Therefore, it would take around 11 hours to finish all measurement with total 138 pots in the first experiment. Considering to this reason, we choose to only use SPAD chlorophyll meter for measurement. And about Table 4, we consider that it is easier to show the results by Table style so we decide to keep Table 4.
Point 30: Lines 703-797: Please check all doi numbers carefully (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 15,
16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 are not active).
Also, references 29 and 37 have not doi please enter them.
Response 30: We revised the reference part, please check in the manuscript. About references 29 and 37, we are so sorry that we cannot find the doi.
Dear review editor,
Thank you for your precious suggestion. We revised the manuscript based on your advice. Your advice helps the manuscript be more easily understanding. We responded to your point one by one. Please check the following answers and the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Tzuya Weng
Point 1, 2&3: Line 23: Do not start a sentence with “it”. /Lines 23-24: Please explain locations of experiments. / Line 24: This genetic cluster you should mention in previous sentence, where you talk
about Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285.
Response 1, 2&3: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285, align with the M. sinensis ‘Yangtze-Qinling’ genetic cluster, had relatively high principal component analysis ranking values in both two locations experiments, Hokkaido University and Brigham Young University.
Point 4: Line 31: “However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels” – sounds better.
Response 4: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels.
Point 5: Lines 37-38: “Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for
successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions.” – sounds better. Also, after this sentence, please define what a bioenergy crops are.
Response 5: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, such as sugarcane and maize, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions
Point 6: Lines 42-43: Please delete “to drought” at the end of the sentence.
Response 6: We revised the sentence as the following:
To adapt and survive under drought stress, mechanisms involving drought resistance and drought recovery are key aspects of adaptations.
Point 7&8: Line 44: Strong drought tolerance is not acceptable definition. Please delete “strong”. / Lines 43-46: Please give some example.
Response 7&8: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 9: Lines 48-51: Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant
switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conductance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE) when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. – sounds better, but please explain what means positively correlated.
Response 9: We revised this part of the description as the following:
Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) genotypes was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conduct-ance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE), when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. It means that the performance of Pn can be regarded as the physiological response of plants under drought.
Point 10: Line 53: Reformulate this sentence. What are drought events?
Response 10: We revised the sentence as the following:
Extreme drought will likely increase in the future due to global warming.
Point 11: Lines 55-56: Are you talking about recovery or drought? Please write drought in
singular, no droughts.
Response 11: We were considering to describe the recovery from drought in this sentence. And we changed the word of “drought” in singular in the manuscript.
Point 12: Lines 62-63: In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought. – sounds better.
Response 12: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought.
Point 13: Lines 64-67: Please write the explanation.
Response 13: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 14: Lines 73-77: This is unclear and I think you should to provide a detail in Material and methods. You wrote that SMC will continue to decline. How do you mean that fixed soil moisture content decline if it is fixed?
Response 14: We are sorry for making you in confused. This paragraph (Line 72-80) described the changing of SWC in dry-down method. Next paragraph (Line 81-90) was description for the fixed SMC technique.
Point 15: Lines 78-82: What is SMS?
Response 15: We are so sorry for the mistake and revised the word as “SMC” in the manuscript.
Point 16: Lines 84-85: Unclear. Also, abbreviation SMC means soil moisture content not fixed soil moisture content
Response 16: We delete the sentence of Lines 84-85 and revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 17: Line 90: Delete “which is” and please reorganize too long sentence.
Response 17: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus, a C4 perennial rhizomatous grass, has high biomass productivity in marginal lands and expresses high CO2 fixation in low-temperature conditions, underscoring its potential as a bioenergy crop.
Point 18: Lines 101-102: Please explain how.
Response 18: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 19: Line 105: Please replace “Miscanthus” by “Miscanthus species”.
Response 19: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus species are considered to have stronger drought tolerance than another potential energy crop, switchgrass.
Point 20&21: Lines 112-117: Please join this paragraph with previous. / Lines 113-114: Sentence is not clear.
Response 20&21: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 22&23: Line 119: Please explain how drought affected this species. / Line 120: As mentioned above, M. × giganteus is not tolerant to drought – not necessary sentence.
Response 22&23: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 24: Lines 125-131: This is for “Material and methods”.
Response 24: We consider that it is important to show which kind of evaluate methodology we used in the present study. Therefore, we decide to keep this part in “Introduction”.
Point 25: Line 155: Please write with uppercase letter word “list”.
Response 25: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 26: Lines 168-169: SPAD chlorophyll meter (SPAD-502Plus, Konica Minolta, Osaka, Japan) – you should write this in Line 165 when you first mention the SPAD. Also write what does the SPAD measure, relative content of chlorophyll or?
Response 26: We revised this part of the description and added more explanation for what does the SPAD measure, please check in the manuscript.
Point 27: Line 177: What is the difference in these two experiments except the dry-down period repeating?
Response 27: About these two experiments, the dry-down experiment in Hokkaido University and the dry-down experiment in Brigham Young University, the experimental design and method were almost same. The difference in these two experiments are the environment locations (Japan and USA) and some different Miscanthus genotypes. The propose was to compare if the evaluation result will be different at two locations.
Point 28: Line 178: Why not 23 Miscanthus genotypes?
Response 28: we are sorry that it was difficult to use the same 23 Miscanthus genotypes in BYU experiment because of the separate Miscanthus plants management. Therefore, we used 14 genotypes to carry out the experiment in BYU.
Point 29: Lines 194-199: Why these parameters were not measured in the first experiment? I suggest that the results from Table 4. be shown in the figure.
Response 29: The reason we did not use the portable photosynthesis system (LI-6400XT) to measure these photosynthesis parameters in the first experiment is that it would need too much to measure and it is difficult to carry out. For using LI-6400XT, it would take 5~10 minutes to measure one plant. Therefore, it would take around 11 hours to finish all measurement with total 138 pots in the first experiment. Considering to this reason, we choose to only use SPAD chlorophyll meter for measurement. And about Table 4, we consider that it is easier to show the results by Table style so we decide to keep Table 4.
Point 30: Lines 703-797: Please check all doi numbers carefully (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 15,
16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 are not active).
Also, references 29 and 37 have not doi please enter them.
Response 30: We revised the reference part, please check in the manuscript. About references 29 and 37, we are so sorry that we cannot find the doi.
Dear review editor,
Thank you for your precious suggestion. We revised the manuscript based on your advice. Your advice helps the manuscript be more easily understanding. We responded to your point one by one. Please check the following answers and the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Tzuya Weng
Point 1, 2&3: Line 23: Do not start a sentence with “it”. /Lines 23-24: Please explain locations of experiments. / Line 24: This genetic cluster you should mention in previous sentence, where you talk
about Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285.
Response 1, 2&3: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285, align with the M. sinensis ‘Yangtze-Qinling’ genetic cluster, had relatively high principal component analysis ranking values in both two locations experiments, Hokkaido University and Brigham Young University.
Point 4: Line 31: “However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels” – sounds better.
Response 4: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels.
Point 5: Lines 37-38: “Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for
successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions.” – sounds better. Also, after this sentence, please define what a bioenergy crops are.
Response 5: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, such as sugarcane and maize, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions
Point 6: Lines 42-43: Please delete “to drought” at the end of the sentence.
Response 6: We revised the sentence as the following:
To adapt and survive under drought stress, mechanisms involving drought resistance and drought recovery are key aspects of adaptations.
Point 7&8: Line 44: Strong drought tolerance is not acceptable definition. Please delete “strong”. / Lines 43-46: Please give some example.
Response 7&8: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 9: Lines 48-51: Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant
switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conductance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE) when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. – sounds better, but please explain what means positively correlated.
Response 9: We revised this part of the description as the following:
Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) genotypes was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conduct-ance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE), when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. It means that the performance of Pn can be regarded as the physiological response of plants under drought.
Point 10: Line 53: Reformulate this sentence. What are drought events?
Response 10: We revised the sentence as the following:
Extreme drought will likely increase in the future due to global warming.
Point 11: Lines 55-56: Are you talking about recovery or drought? Please write drought in
singular, no droughts.
Response 11: We were considering to describe the recovery from drought in this sentence. And we changed the word of “drought” in singular in the manuscript.
Point 12: Lines 62-63: In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought. – sounds better.
Response 12: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought.
Point 13: Lines 64-67: Please write the explanation.
Response 13: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 14: Lines 73-77: This is unclear and I think you should to provide a detail in Material and methods. You wrote that SMC will continue to decline. How do you mean that fixed soil moisture content decline if it is fixed?
Response 14: We are sorry for making you in confused. This paragraph (Line 72-80) described the changing of SWC in dry-down method. Next paragraph (Line 81-90) was description for the fixed SMC technique.
Point 15: Lines 78-82: What is SMS?
Response 15: We are so sorry for the mistake and revised the word as “SMC” in the manuscript.
Point 16: Lines 84-85: Unclear. Also, abbreviation SMC means soil moisture content not fixed soil moisture content
Response 16: We delete the sentence of Lines 84-85 and revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 17: Line 90: Delete “which is” and please reorganize too long sentence.
Response 17: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus, a C4 perennial rhizomatous grass, has high biomass productivity in marginal lands and expresses high CO2 fixation in low-temperature conditions, underscoring its potential as a bioenergy crop.
Point 18: Lines 101-102: Please explain how.
Response 18: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 19: Line 105: Please replace “Miscanthus” by “Miscanthus species”.
Response 19: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus species are considered to have stronger drought tolerance than another potential energy crop, switchgrass.
Point 20&21: Lines 112-117: Please join this paragraph with previous. / Lines 113-114: Sentence is not clear.
Response 20&21: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 22&23: Line 119: Please explain how drought affected this species. / Line 120: As mentioned above, M. × giganteus is not tolerant to drought – not necessary sentence.
Response 22&23: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 24: Lines 125-131: This is for “Material and methods”.
Response 24: We consider that it is important to show which kind of evaluate methodology we used in the present study. Therefore, we decide to keep this part in “Introduction”.
Point 25: Line 155: Please write with uppercase letter word “list”.
Response 25: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 26: Lines 168-169: SPAD chlorophyll meter (SPAD-502Plus, Konica Minolta, Osaka, Japan) – you should write this in Line 165 when you first mention the SPAD. Also write what does the SPAD measure, relative content of chlorophyll or?
Response 26: We revised this part of the description and added more explanation for what does the SPAD measure, please check in the manuscript.
Point 27: Line 177: What is the difference in these two experiments except the dry-down period repeating?
Response 27: About these two experiments, the dry-down experiment in Hokkaido University and the dry-down experiment in Brigham Young University, the experimental design and method were almost same. The difference in these two experiments are the environment locations (Japan and USA) and some different Miscanthus genotypes. The propose was to compare if the evaluation result will be different at two locations.
Point 28: Line 178: Why not 23 Miscanthus genotypes?
Response 28: we are sorry that it was difficult to use the same 23 Miscanthus genotypes in BYU experiment because of the separate Miscanthus plants management. Therefore, we used 14 genotypes to carry out the experiment in BYU.
Point 29: Lines 194-199: Why these parameters were not measured in the first experiment? I suggest that the results from Table 4. be shown in the figure.
Response 29: The reason we did not use the portable photosynthesis system (LI-6400XT) to measure these photosynthesis parameters in the first experiment is that it would need too much to measure and it is difficult to carry out. For using LI-6400XT, it would take 5~10 minutes to measure one plant. Therefore, it would take around 11 hours to finish all measurement with total 138 pots in the first experiment. Considering to this reason, we choose to only use SPAD chlorophyll meter for measurement. And about Table 4, we consider that it is easier to show the results by Table style so we decide to keep Table 4.
Point 30: Lines 703-797: Please check all doi numbers carefully (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 15,
16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 are not active).
Also, references 29 and 37 have not doi please enter them.
Response 30: We revised the reference part, please check in the manuscript. About references 29 and 37, we are so sorry that we cannot find the doi.
Dear review editor,
Thank you for your precious suggestion. We revised the manuscript based on your advice. Your advice helps the manuscript be more easily understanding. We responded to your point one by one. Please check the following answers and the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Tzuya Weng
Point 1, 2&3: Line 23: Do not start a sentence with “it”. /Lines 23-24: Please explain locations of experiments. / Line 24: This genetic cluster you should mention in previous sentence, where you talk
about Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285.
Response 1, 2&3: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285, align with the M. sinensis ‘Yangtze-Qinling’ genetic cluster, had relatively high principal component analysis ranking values in both two locations experiments, Hokkaido University and Brigham Young University.
Point 4: Line 31: “However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels” – sounds better.
Response 4: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels.
Point 5: Lines 37-38: “Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for
successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions.” – sounds better. Also, after this sentence, please define what a bioenergy crops are.
Response 5: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, such as sugarcane and maize, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions
Point 6: Lines 42-43: Please delete “to drought” at the end of the sentence.
Response 6: We revised the sentence as the following:
To adapt and survive under drought stress, mechanisms involving drought resistance and drought recovery are key aspects of adaptations.
Point 7&8: Line 44: Strong drought tolerance is not acceptable definition. Please delete “strong”. / Lines 43-46: Please give some example.
Response 7&8: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 9: Lines 48-51: Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant
switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conductance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE) when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. – sounds better, but please explain what means positively correlated.
Response 9: We revised this part of the description as the following:
Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) genotypes was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conduct-ance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE), when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. It means that the performance of Pn can be regarded as the physiological response of plants under drought.
Point 10: Line 53: Reformulate this sentence. What are drought events?
Response 10: We revised the sentence as the following:
Extreme drought will likely increase in the future due to global warming.
Point 11: Lines 55-56: Are you talking about recovery or drought? Please write drought in
singular, no droughts.
Response 11: We were considering to describe the recovery from drought in this sentence. And we changed the word of “drought” in singular in the manuscript.
Point 12: Lines 62-63: In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought. – sounds better.
Response 12: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought.
Point 13: Lines 64-67: Please write the explanation.
Response 13: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 14: Lines 73-77: This is unclear and I think you should to provide a detail in Material and methods. You wrote that SMC will continue to decline. How do you mean that fixed soil moisture content decline if it is fixed?
Response 14: We are sorry for making you in confused. This paragraph (Line 72-80) described the changing of SWC in dry-down method. Next paragraph (Line 81-90) was description for the fixed SMC technique.
Point 15: Lines 78-82: What is SMS?
Response 15: We are so sorry for the mistake and revised the word as “SMC” in the manuscript.
Point 16: Lines 84-85: Unclear. Also, abbreviation SMC means soil moisture content not fixed soil moisture content
Response 16: We delete the sentence of Lines 84-85 and revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 17: Line 90: Delete “which is” and please reorganize too long sentence.
Response 17: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus, a C4 perennial rhizomatous grass, has high biomass productivity in marginal lands and expresses high CO2 fixation in low-temperature conditions, underscoring its potential as a bioenergy crop.
Point 18: Lines 101-102: Please explain how.
Response 18: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 19: Line 105: Please replace “Miscanthus” by “Miscanthus species”.
Response 19: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus species are considered to have stronger drought tolerance than another potential energy crop, switchgrass.
Point 20&21: Lines 112-117: Please join this paragraph with previous. / Lines 113-114: Sentence is not clear.
Response 20&21: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 22&23: Line 119: Please explain how drought affected this species. / Line 120: As mentioned above, M. × giganteus is not tolerant to drought – not necessary sentence.
Response 22&23: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 24: Lines 125-131: This is for “Material and methods”.
Response 24: We consider that it is important to show which kind of evaluate methodology we used in the present study. Therefore, we decide to keep this part in “Introduction”.
Point 25: Line 155: Please write with uppercase letter word “list”.
Response 25: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 26: Lines 168-169: SPAD chlorophyll meter (SPAD-502Plus, Konica Minolta, Osaka, Japan) – you should write this in Line 165 when you first mention the SPAD. Also write what does the SPAD measure, relative content of chlorophyll or?
Response 26: We revised this part of the description and added more explanation for what does the SPAD measure, please check in the manuscript.
Point 27: Line 177: What is the difference in these two experiments except the dry-down period repeating?
Response 27: About these two experiments, the dry-down experiment in Hokkaido University and the dry-down experiment in Brigham Young University, the experimental design and method were almost same. The difference in these two experiments are the environment locations (Japan and USA) and some different Miscanthus genotypes. The propose was to compare if the evaluation result will be different at two locations.
Point 28: Line 178: Why not 23 Miscanthus genotypes?
Response 28: we are sorry that it was difficult to use the same 23 Miscanthus genotypes in BYU experiment because of the separate Miscanthus plants management. Therefore, we used 14 genotypes to carry out the experiment in BYU.
Point 29: Lines 194-199: Why these parameters were not measured in the first experiment? I suggest that the results from Table 4. be shown in the figure.
Response 29: The reason we did not use the portable photosynthesis system (LI-6400XT) to measure these photosynthesis parameters in the first experiment is that it would need too much to measure and it is difficult to carry out. For using LI-6400XT, it would take 5~10 minutes to measure one plant. Therefore, it would take around 11 hours to finish all measurement with total 138 pots in the first experiment. Considering to this reason, we choose to only use SPAD chlorophyll meter for measurement. And about Table 4, we consider that it is easier to show the results by Table style so we decide to keep Table 4.
Point 30: Lines 703-797: Please check all doi numbers carefully (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 15,
16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 are not active).
Also, references 29 and 37 have not doi please enter them.
Response 30: We revised the reference part, please check in the manuscript. About references 29 and 37, we are so sorry that we cannot find the doi.
Dear review editor,
Thank you for your precious suggestion. We revised the manuscript based on your advice. Your advice helps the manuscript be more easily understanding. We responded to your point one by one. Please check the following answers and the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Tzuya Weng
Point 1, 2&3: Line 23: Do not start a sentence with “it”. /Lines 23-24: Please explain locations of experiments. / Line 24: This genetic cluster you should mention in previous sentence, where you talk
about Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285.
Response 1, 2&3: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285, align with the M. sinensis ‘Yangtze-Qinling’ genetic cluster, had relatively high principal component analysis ranking values in both two locations experiments, Hokkaido University and Brigham Young University.
Point 4: Line 31: “However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels” – sounds better.
Response 4: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels.
Point 5: Lines 37-38: “Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for
successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions.” – sounds better. Also, after this sentence, please define what a bioenergy crops are.
Response 5: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, such as sugarcane and maize, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions
Point 6: Lines 42-43: Please delete “to drought” at the end of the sentence.
Response 6: We revised the sentence as the following:
To adapt and survive under drought stress, mechanisms involving drought resistance and drought recovery are key aspects of adaptations.
Point 7&8: Line 44: Strong drought tolerance is not acceptable definition. Please delete “strong”. / Lines 43-46: Please give some example.
Response 7&8: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 9: Lines 48-51: Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant
switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conductance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE) when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. – sounds better, but please explain what means positively correlated.
Response 9: We revised this part of the description as the following:
Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) genotypes was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conduct-ance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE), when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. It means that the performance of Pn can be regarded as the physiological response of plants under drought.
Point 10: Line 53: Reformulate this sentence. What are drought events?
Response 10: We revised the sentence as the following:
Extreme drought will likely increase in the future due to global warming.
Point 11: Lines 55-56: Are you talking about recovery or drought? Please write drought in
singular, no droughts.
Response 11: We were considering to describe the recovery from drought in this sentence. And we changed the word of “drought” in singular in the manuscript.
Point 12: Lines 62-63: In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought. – sounds better.
Response 12: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought.
Point 13: Lines 64-67: Please write the explanation.
Response 13: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 14: Lines 73-77: This is unclear and I think you should to provide a detail in Material and methods. You wrote that SMC will continue to decline. How do you mean that fixed soil moisture content decline if it is fixed?
Response 14: We are sorry for making you in confused. This paragraph (Line 72-80) described the changing of SWC in dry-down method. Next paragraph (Line 81-90) was description for the fixed SMC technique.
Point 15: Lines 78-82: What is SMS?
Response 15: We are so sorry for the mistake and revised the word as “SMC” in the manuscript.
Point 16: Lines 84-85: Unclear. Also, abbreviation SMC means soil moisture content not fixed soil moisture content
Response 16: We delete the sentence of Lines 84-85 and revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 17: Line 90: Delete “which is” and please reorganize too long sentence.
Response 17: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus, a C4 perennial rhizomatous grass, has high biomass productivity in marginal lands and expresses high CO2 fixation in low-temperature conditions, underscoring its potential as a bioenergy crop.
Point 18: Lines 101-102: Please explain how.
Response 18: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 19: Line 105: Please replace “Miscanthus” by “Miscanthus species”.
Response 19: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus species are considered to have stronger drought tolerance than another potential energy crop, switchgrass.
Point 20&21: Lines 112-117: Please join this paragraph with previous. / Lines 113-114: Sentence is not clear.
Response 20&21: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 22&23: Line 119: Please explain how drought affected this species. / Line 120: As mentioned above, M. × giganteus is not tolerant to drought – not necessary sentence.
Response 22&23: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 24: Lines 125-131: This is for “Material and methods”.
Response 24: We consider that it is important to show which kind of evaluate methodology we used in the present study. Therefore, we decide to keep this part in “Introduction”.
Point 25: Line 155: Please write with uppercase letter word “list”.
Response 25: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 26: Lines 168-169: SPAD chlorophyll meter (SPAD-502Plus, Konica Minolta, Osaka, Japan) – you should write this in Line 165 when you first mention the SPAD. Also write what does the SPAD measure, relative content of chlorophyll or?
Response 26: We revised this part of the description and added more explanation for what does the SPAD measure, please check in the manuscript.
Point 27: Line 177: What is the difference in these two experiments except the dry-down period repeating?
Response 27: About these two experiments, the dry-down experiment in Hokkaido University and the dry-down experiment in Brigham Young University, the experimental design and method were almost same. The difference in these two experiments are the environment locations (Japan and USA) and some different Miscanthus genotypes. The propose was to compare if the evaluation result will be different at two locations.
Point 28: Line 178: Why not 23 Miscanthus genotypes?
Response 28: we are sorry that it was difficult to use the same 23 Miscanthus genotypes in BYU experiment because of the separate Miscanthus plants management. Therefore, we used 14 genotypes to carry out the experiment in BYU.
Point 29: Lines 194-199: Why these parameters were not measured in the first experiment? I suggest that the results from Table 4. be shown in the figure.
Response 29: The reason we did not use the portable photosynthesis system (LI-6400XT) to measure these photosynthesis parameters in the first experiment is that it would need too much to measure and it is difficult to carry out. For using LI-6400XT, it would take 5~10 minutes to measure one plant. Therefore, it would take around 11 hours to finish all measurement with total 138 pots in the first experiment. Considering to this reason, we choose to only use SPAD chlorophyll meter for measurement. And about Table 4, we consider that it is easier to show the results by Table style so we decide to keep Table 4.
Point 30: Lines 703-797: Please check all doi numbers carefully (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 15,
16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 are not active).
Also, references 29 and 37 have not doi please enter them.
Response 30: We revised the reference part, please check in the manuscript. About references 29 and 37, we are so sorry that we cannot find the doi.
Dear review editor,
Thank you for your precious suggestion. We revised the manuscript based on your advice. Your advice helps the manuscript be more easily understanding. We responded to your point one by one. Please check the following answers and the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Tzuya Weng
Point 1, 2&3: Line 23: Do not start a sentence with “it”. /Lines 23-24: Please explain locations of experiments. / Line 24: This genetic cluster you should mention in previous sentence, where you talk
about Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285.
Response 1, 2&3: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285, align with the M. sinensis ‘Yangtze-Qinling’ genetic cluster, had relatively high principal component analysis ranking values in both two locations experiments, Hokkaido University and Brigham Young University.
Point 4: Line 31: “However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels” – sounds better.
Response 4: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels.
Point 5: Lines 37-38: “Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for
successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions.” – sounds better. Also, after this sentence, please define what a bioenergy crops are.
Response 5: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, such as sugarcane and maize, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions
Point 6: Lines 42-43: Please delete “to drought” at the end of the sentence.
Response 6: We revised the sentence as the following:
To adapt and survive under drought stress, mechanisms involving drought resistance and drought recovery are key aspects of adaptations.
Point 7&8: Line 44: Strong drought tolerance is not acceptable definition. Please delete “strong”. / Lines 43-46: Please give some example.
Response 7&8: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 9: Lines 48-51: Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant
switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conductance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE) when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. – sounds better, but please explain what means positively correlated.
Response 9: We revised this part of the description as the following:
Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) genotypes was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conduct-ance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE), when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. It means that the performance of Pn can be regarded as the physiological response of plants under drought.
Point 10: Line 53: Reformulate this sentence. What are drought events?
Response 10: We revised the sentence as the following:
Extreme drought will likely increase in the future due to global warming.
Point 11: Lines 55-56: Are you talking about recovery or drought? Please write drought in
singular, no droughts.
Response 11: We were considering to describe the recovery from drought in this sentence. And we changed the word of “drought” in singular in the manuscript.
Point 12: Lines 62-63: In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought. – sounds better.
Response 12: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought.
Point 13: Lines 64-67: Please write the explanation.
Response 13: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 14: Lines 73-77: This is unclear and I think you should to provide a detail in Material and methods. You wrote that SMC will continue to decline. How do you mean that fixed soil moisture content decline if it is fixed?
Response 14: We are sorry for making you in confused. This paragraph (Line 72-80) described the changing of SWC in dry-down method. Next paragraph (Line 81-90) was description for the fixed SMC technique.
Point 15: Lines 78-82: What is SMS?
Response 15: We are so sorry for the mistake and revised the word as “SMC” in the manuscript.
Point 16: Lines 84-85: Unclear. Also, abbreviation SMC means soil moisture content not fixed soil moisture content
Response 16: We delete the sentence of Lines 84-85 and revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 17: Line 90: Delete “which is” and please reorganize too long sentence.
Response 17: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus, a C4 perennial rhizomatous grass, has high biomass productivity in marginal lands and expresses high CO2 fixation in low-temperature conditions, underscoring its potential as a bioenergy crop.
Point 18: Lines 101-102: Please explain how.
Response 18: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 19: Line 105: Please replace “Miscanthus” by “Miscanthus species”.
Response 19: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus species are considered to have stronger drought tolerance than another potential energy crop, switchgrass.
Point 20&21: Lines 112-117: Please join this paragraph with previous. / Lines 113-114: Sentence is not clear.
Response 20&21: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 22&23: Line 119: Please explain how drought affected this species. / Line 120: As mentioned above, M. × giganteus is not tolerant to drought – not necessary sentence.
Response 22&23: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 24: Lines 125-131: This is for “Material and methods”.
Response 24: We consider that it is important to show which kind of evaluate methodology we used in the present study. Therefore, we decide to keep this part in “Introduction”.
Point 25: Line 155: Please write with uppercase letter word “list”.
Response 25: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 26: Lines 168-169: SPAD chlorophyll meter (SPAD-502Plus, Konica Minolta, Osaka, Japan) – you should write this in Line 165 when you first mention the SPAD. Also write what does the SPAD measure, relative content of chlorophyll or?
Response 26: We revised this part of the description and added more explanation for what does the SPAD measure, please check in the manuscript.
Point 27: Line 177: What is the difference in these two experiments except the dry-down period repeating?
Response 27: About these two experiments, the dry-down experiment in Hokkaido University and the dry-down experiment in Brigham Young University, the experimental design and method were almost same. The difference in these two experiments are the environment locations (Japan and USA) and some different Miscanthus genotypes. The propose was to compare if the evaluation result will be different at two locations.
Point 28: Line 178: Why not 23 Miscanthus genotypes?
Response 28: we are sorry that it was difficult to use the same 23 Miscanthus genotypes in BYU experiment because of the separate Miscanthus plants management. Therefore, we used 14 genotypes to carry out the experiment in BYU.
Point 29: Lines 194-199: Why these parameters were not measured in the first experiment? I suggest that the results from Table 4. be shown in the figure.
Response 29: The reason we did not use the portable photosynthesis system (LI-6400XT) to measure these photosynthesis parameters in the first experiment is that it would need too much to measure and it is difficult to carry out. For using LI-6400XT, it would take 5~10 minutes to measure one plant. Therefore, it would take around 11 hours to finish all measurement with total 138 pots in the first experiment. Considering to this reason, we choose to only use SPAD chlorophyll meter for measurement. And about Table 4, we consider that it is easier to show the results by Table style so we decide to keep Table 4.
Point 30: Lines 703-797: Please check all doi numbers carefully (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 15,
16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 are not active).
Also, references 29 and 37 have not doi please enter them.
Response 30: We revised the reference part, please check in the manuscript. About references 29 and 37, we are so sorry that we cannot find the doi.
Dear review editor,
Thank you for your precious suggestion. We revised the manuscript based on your advice. Your advice helps the manuscript be more easily understanding. We responded to your point one by one. Please check the following answers and the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Tzuya Weng
Point 1, 2&3: Line 23: Do not start a sentence with “it”. /Lines 23-24: Please explain locations of experiments. / Line 24: This genetic cluster you should mention in previous sentence, where you talk
about Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285.
Response 1, 2&3: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285, align with the M. sinensis ‘Yangtze-Qinling’ genetic cluster, had relatively high principal component analysis ranking values in both two locations experiments, Hokkaido University and Brigham Young University.
Point 4: Line 31: “However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels” – sounds better.
Response 4: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels.
Point 5: Lines 37-38: “Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for
successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions.” – sounds better. Also, after this sentence, please define what a bioenergy crops are.
Response 5: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, such as sugarcane and maize, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions
Point 6: Lines 42-43: Please delete “to drought” at the end of the sentence.
Response 6: We revised the sentence as the following:
To adapt and survive under drought stress, mechanisms involving drought resistance and drought recovery are key aspects of adaptations.
Point 7&8: Line 44: Strong drought tolerance is not acceptable definition. Please delete “strong”. / Lines 43-46: Please give some example.
Response 7&8: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 9: Lines 48-51: Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant
switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conductance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE) when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. – sounds better, but please explain what means positively correlated.
Response 9: We revised this part of the description as the following:
Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) genotypes was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conduct-ance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE), when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. It means that the performance of Pn can be regarded as the physiological response of plants under drought.
Point 10: Line 53: Reformulate this sentence. What are drought events?
Response 10: We revised the sentence as the following:
Extreme drought will likely increase in the future due to global warming.
Point 11: Lines 55-56: Are you talking about recovery or drought? Please write drought in
singular, no droughts.
Response 11: We were considering to describe the recovery from drought in this sentence. And we changed the word of “drought” in singular in the manuscript.
Point 12: Lines 62-63: In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought. – sounds better.
Response 12: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought.
Point 13: Lines 64-67: Please write the explanation.
Response 13: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 14: Lines 73-77: This is unclear and I think you should to provide a detail in Material and methods. You wrote that SMC will continue to decline. How do you mean that fixed soil moisture content decline if it is fixed?
Response 14: We are sorry for making you in confused. This paragraph (Line 72-80) described the changing of SWC in dry-down method. Next paragraph (Line 81-90) was description for the fixed SMC technique.
Point 15: Lines 78-82: What is SMS?
Response 15: We are so sorry for the mistake and revised the word as “SMC” in the manuscript.
Point 16: Lines 84-85: Unclear. Also, abbreviation SMC means soil moisture content not fixed soil moisture content
Response 16: We delete the sentence of Lines 84-85 and revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 17: Line 90: Delete “which is” and please reorganize too long sentence.
Response 17: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus, a C4 perennial rhizomatous grass, has high biomass productivity in marginal lands and expresses high CO2 fixation in low-temperature conditions, underscoring its potential as a bioenergy crop.
Point 18: Lines 101-102: Please explain how.
Response 18: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 19: Line 105: Please replace “Miscanthus” by “Miscanthus species”.
Response 19: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus species are considered to have stronger drought tolerance than another potential energy crop, switchgrass.
Point 20&21: Lines 112-117: Please join this paragraph with previous. / Lines 113-114: Sentence is not clear.
Response 20&21: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 22&23: Line 119: Please explain how drought affected this species. / Line 120: As mentioned above, M. × giganteus is not tolerant to drought – not necessary sentence.
Response 22&23: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 24: Lines 125-131: This is for “Material and methods”.
Response 24: We consider that it is important to show which kind of evaluate methodology we used in the present study. Therefore, we decide to keep this part in “Introduction”.
Point 25: Line 155: Please write with uppercase letter word “list”.
Response 25: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 26: Lines 168-169: SPAD chlorophyll meter (SPAD-502Plus, Konica Minolta, Osaka, Japan) – you should write this in Line 165 when you first mention the SPAD. Also write what does the SPAD measure, relative content of chlorophyll or?
Response 26: We revised this part of the description and added more explanation for what does the SPAD measure, please check in the manuscript.
Point 27: Line 177: What is the difference in these two experiments except the dry-down period repeating?
Response 27: About these two experiments, the dry-down experiment in Hokkaido University and the dry-down experiment in Brigham Young University, the experimental design and method were almost same. The difference in these two experiments are the environment locations (Japan and USA) and some different Miscanthus genotypes. The propose was to compare if the evaluation result will be different at two locations.
Point 28: Line 178: Why not 23 Miscanthus genotypes?
Response 28: we are sorry that it was difficult to use the same 23 Miscanthus genotypes in BYU experiment because of the separate Miscanthus plants management. Therefore, we used 14 genotypes to carry out the experiment in BYU.
Point 29: Lines 194-199: Why these parameters were not measured in the first experiment? I suggest that the results from Table 4. be shown in the figure.
Response 29: The reason we did not use the portable photosynthesis system (LI-6400XT) to measure these photosynthesis parameters in the first experiment is that it would need too much to measure and it is difficult to carry out. For using LI-6400XT, it would take 5~10 minutes to measure one plant. Therefore, it would take around 11 hours to finish all measurement with total 138 pots in the first experiment. Considering to this reason, we choose to only use SPAD chlorophyll meter for measurement. And about Table 4, we consider that it is easier to show the results by Table style so we decide to keep Table 4.
Point 30: Lines 703-797: Please check all doi numbers carefully (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 15,
16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 are not active).
Also, references 29 and 37 have not doi please enter them.
Response 30: We revised the reference part, please check in the manuscript. About references 29 and 37, we are so sorry that we cannot find the doi.
Dear review editor,
Thank you for your precious suggestion. We revised the manuscript based on your advice. Your advice helps the manuscript be more easily understanding. We responded to your point one by one. Please check the following answers and the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Tzuya Weng
Point 1, 2&3: Line 23: Do not start a sentence with “it”. /Lines 23-24: Please explain locations of experiments. / Line 24: This genetic cluster you should mention in previous sentence, where you talk
about Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285.
Response 1, 2&3: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285, align with the M. sinensis ‘Yangtze-Qinling’ genetic cluster, had relatively high principal component analysis ranking values in both two locations experiments, Hokkaido University and Brigham Young University.
Point 4: Line 31: “However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels” – sounds better.
Response 4: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels.
Point 5: Lines 37-38: “Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for
successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions.” – sounds better. Also, after this sentence, please define what a bioenergy crops are.
Response 5: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, such as sugarcane and maize, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions
Point 6: Lines 42-43: Please delete “to drought” at the end of the sentence.
Response 6: We revised the sentence as the following:
To adapt and survive under drought stress, mechanisms involving drought resistance and drought recovery are key aspects of adaptations.
Point 7&8: Line 44: Strong drought tolerance is not acceptable definition. Please delete “strong”. / Lines 43-46: Please give some example.
Response 7&8: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 9: Lines 48-51: Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant
switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conductance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE) when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. – sounds better, but please explain what means positively correlated.
Response 9: We revised this part of the description as the following:
Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) genotypes was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conduct-ance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE), when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. It means that the performance of Pn can be regarded as the physiological response of plants under drought.
Point 10: Line 53: Reformulate this sentence. What are drought events?
Response 10: We revised the sentence as the following:
Extreme drought will likely increase in the future due to global warming.
Point 11: Lines 55-56: Are you talking about recovery or drought? Please write drought in
singular, no droughts.
Response 11: We were considering to describe the recovery from drought in this sentence. And we changed the word of “drought” in singular in the manuscript.
Point 12: Lines 62-63: In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought. – sounds better.
Response 12: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought.
Point 13: Lines 64-67: Please write the explanation.
Response 13: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 14: Lines 73-77: This is unclear and I think you should to provide a detail in Material and methods. You wrote that SMC will continue to decline. How do you mean that fixed soil moisture content decline if it is fixed?
Response 14: We are sorry for making you in confused. This paragraph (Line 72-80) described the changing of SWC in dry-down method. Next paragraph (Line 81-90) was description for the fixed SMC technique.
Point 15: Lines 78-82: What is SMS?
Response 15: We are so sorry for the mistake and revised the word as “SMC” in the manuscript.
Point 16: Lines 84-85: Unclear. Also, abbreviation SMC means soil moisture content not fixed soil moisture content
Response 16: We delete the sentence of Lines 84-85 and revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 17: Line 90: Delete “which is” and please reorganize too long sentence.
Response 17: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus, a C4 perennial rhizomatous grass, has high biomass productivity in marginal lands and expresses high CO2 fixation in low-temperature conditions, underscoring its potential as a bioenergy crop.
Point 18: Lines 101-102: Please explain how.
Response 18: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 19: Line 105: Please replace “Miscanthus” by “Miscanthus species”.
Response 19: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus species are considered to have stronger drought tolerance than another potential energy crop, switchgrass.
Point 20&21: Lines 112-117: Please join this paragraph with previous. / Lines 113-114: Sentence is not clear.
Response 20&21: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 22&23: Line 119: Please explain how drought affected this species. / Line 120: As mentioned above, M. × giganteus is not tolerant to drought – not necessary sentence.
Response 22&23: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 24: Lines 125-131: This is for “Material and methods”.
Response 24: We consider that it is important to show which kind of evaluate methodology we used in the present study. Therefore, we decide to keep this part in “Introduction”.
Point 25: Line 155: Please write with uppercase letter word “list”.
Response 25: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 26: Lines 168-169: SPAD chlorophyll meter (SPAD-502Plus, Konica Minolta, Osaka, Japan) – you should write this in Line 165 when you first mention the SPAD. Also write what does the SPAD measure, relative content of chlorophyll or?
Response 26: We revised this part of the description and added more explanation for what does the SPAD measure, please check in the manuscript.
Point 27: Line 177: What is the difference in these two experiments except the dry-down period repeating?
Response 27: About these two experiments, the dry-down experiment in Hokkaido University and the dry-down experiment in Brigham Young University, the experimental design and method were almost same. The difference in these two experiments are the environment locations (Japan and USA) and some different Miscanthus genotypes. The propose was to compare if the evaluation result will be different at two locations.
Point 28: Line 178: Why not 23 Miscanthus genotypes?
Response 28: we are sorry that it was difficult to use the same 23 Miscanthus genotypes in BYU experiment because of the separate Miscanthus plants management. Therefore, we used 14 genotypes to carry out the experiment in BYU.
Point 29: Lines 194-199: Why these parameters were not measured in the first experiment? I suggest that the results from Table 4. be shown in the figure.
Response 29: The reason we did not use the portable photosynthesis system (LI-6400XT) to measure these photosynthesis parameters in the first experiment is that it would need too much to measure and it is difficult to carry out. For using LI-6400XT, it would take 5~10 minutes to measure one plant. Therefore, it would take around 11 hours to finish all measurement with total 138 pots in the first experiment. Considering to this reason, we choose to only use SPAD chlorophyll meter for measurement. And about Table 4, we consider that it is easier to show the results by Table style so we decide to keep Table 4.
Point 30: Lines 703-797: Please check all doi numbers carefully (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 15,
16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 are not active).
Also, references 29 and 37 have not doi please enter them.
Response 30: We revised the reference part, please check in the manuscript. About references 29 and 37, we are so sorry that we cannot find the doi.
Dear review editor,
Thank you for your precious suggestion. We revised the manuscript based on your advice. Your advice helps the manuscript be more easily understanding. We responded to your point one by one. Please check the following answers and the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Tzuya Weng
Point 1, 2&3: Line 23: Do not start a sentence with “it”. /Lines 23-24: Please explain locations of experiments. / Line 24: This genetic cluster you should mention in previous sentence, where you talk
about Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285.
Response 1, 2&3: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285, align with the M. sinensis ‘Yangtze-Qinling’ genetic cluster, had relatively high principal component analysis ranking values in both two locations experiments, Hokkaido University and Brigham Young University.
Point 4: Line 31: “However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels” – sounds better.
Response 4: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels.
Point 5: Lines 37-38: “Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for
successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions.” – sounds better. Also, after this sentence, please define what a bioenergy crops are.
Response 5: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, such as sugarcane and maize, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions
Point 6: Lines 42-43: Please delete “to drought” at the end of the sentence.
Response 6: We revised the sentence as the following:
To adapt and survive under drought stress, mechanisms involving drought resistance and drought recovery are key aspects of adaptations.
Point 7&8: Line 44: Strong drought tolerance is not acceptable definition. Please delete “strong”. / Lines 43-46: Please give some example.
Response 7&8: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 9: Lines 48-51: Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant
switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conductance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE) when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. – sounds better, but please explain what means positively correlated.
Response 9: We revised this part of the description as the following:
Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) genotypes was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conduct-ance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE), when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. It means that the performance of Pn can be regarded as the physiological response of plants under drought.
Point 10: Line 53: Reformulate this sentence. What are drought events?
Response 10: We revised the sentence as the following:
Extreme drought will likely increase in the future due to global warming.
Point 11: Lines 55-56: Are you talking about recovery or drought? Please write drought in
singular, no droughts.
Response 11: We were considering to describe the recovery from drought in this sentence. And we changed the word of “drought” in singular in the manuscript.
Point 12: Lines 62-63: In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought. – sounds better.
Response 12: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought.
Point 13: Lines 64-67: Please write the explanation.
Response 13: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 14: Lines 73-77: This is unclear and I think you should to provide a detail in Material and methods. You wrote that SMC will continue to decline. How do you mean that fixed soil moisture content decline if it is fixed?
Response 14: We are sorry for making you in confused. This paragraph (Line 72-80) described the changing of SWC in dry-down method. Next paragraph (Line 81-90) was description for the fixed SMC technique.
Point 15: Lines 78-82: What is SMS?
Response 15: We are so sorry for the mistake and revised the word as “SMC” in the manuscript.
Point 16: Lines 84-85: Unclear. Also, abbreviation SMC means soil moisture content not fixed soil moisture content
Response 16: We delete the sentence of Lines 84-85 and revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 17: Line 90: Delete “which is” and please reorganize too long sentence.
Response 17: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus, a C4 perennial rhizomatous grass, has high biomass productivity in marginal lands and expresses high CO2 fixation in low-temperature conditions, underscoring its potential as a bioenergy crop.
Point 18: Lines 101-102: Please explain how.
Response 18: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 19: Line 105: Please replace “Miscanthus” by “Miscanthus species”.
Response 19: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus species are considered to have stronger drought tolerance than another potential energy crop, switchgrass.
Point 20&21: Lines 112-117: Please join this paragraph with previous. / Lines 113-114: Sentence is not clear.
Response 20&21: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 22&23: Line 119: Please explain how drought affected this species. / Line 120: As mentioned above, M. × giganteus is not tolerant to drought – not necessary sentence.
Response 22&23: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 24: Lines 125-131: This is for “Material and methods”.
Response 24: We consider that it is important to show which kind of evaluate methodology we used in the present study. Therefore, we decide to keep this part in “Introduction”.
Point 25: Line 155: Please write with uppercase letter word “list”.
Response 25: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 26: Lines 168-169: SPAD chlorophyll meter (SPAD-502Plus, Konica Minolta, Osaka, Japan) – you should write this in Line 165 when you first mention the SPAD. Also write what does the SPAD measure, relative content of chlorophyll or?
Response 26: We revised this part of the description and added more explanation for what does the SPAD measure, please check in the manuscript.
Point 27: Line 177: What is the difference in these two experiments except the dry-down period repeating?
Response 27: About these two experiments, the dry-down experiment in Hokkaido University and the dry-down experiment in Brigham Young University, the experimental design and method were almost same. The difference in these two experiments are the environment locations (Japan and USA) and some different Miscanthus genotypes. The propose was to compare if the evaluation result will be different at two locations.
Point 28: Line 178: Why not 23 Miscanthus genotypes?
Response 28: we are sorry that it was difficult to use the same 23 Miscanthus genotypes in BYU experiment because of the separate Miscanthus plants management. Therefore, we used 14 genotypes to carry out the experiment in BYU.
Point 29: Lines 194-199: Why these parameters were not measured in the first experiment? I suggest that the results from Table 4. be shown in the figure.
Response 29: The reason we did not use the portable photosynthesis system (LI-6400XT) to measure these photosynthesis parameters in the first experiment is that it would need too much to measure and it is difficult to carry out. For using LI-6400XT, it would take 5~10 minutes to measure one plant. Therefore, it would take around 11 hours to finish all measurement with total 138 pots in the first experiment. Considering to this reason, we choose to only use SPAD chlorophyll meter for measurement. And about Table 4, we consider that it is easier to show the results by Table style so we decide to keep Table 4.
Point 30: Lines 703-797: Please check all doi numbers carefully (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 15,
16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 are not active).
Also, references 29 and 37 have not doi please enter them.
Response 30: We revised the reference part, please check in the manuscript. About references 29 and 37, we are so sorry that we cannot find the doi.
Dear review editor,
Thank you for your precious suggestion. We revised the manuscript based on your advice. Your advice helps the manuscript be more easily understanding. We responded to your point one by one. Please check the following answers and the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Tzuya Weng
Point 1, 2&3: Line 23: Do not start a sentence with “it”. /Lines 23-24: Please explain locations of experiments. / Line 24: This genetic cluster you should mention in previous sentence, where you talk
about Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285.
Response 1, 2&3: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285, align with the M. sinensis ‘Yangtze-Qinling’ genetic cluster, had relatively high principal component analysis ranking values in both two locations experiments, Hokkaido University and Brigham Young University.
Point 4: Line 31: “However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels” – sounds better.
Response 4: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels.
Point 5: Lines 37-38: “Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for
successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions.” – sounds better. Also, after this sentence, please define what a bioenergy crops are.
Response 5: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, such as sugarcane and maize, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions
Point 6: Lines 42-43: Please delete “to drought” at the end of the sentence.
Response 6: We revised the sentence as the following:
To adapt and survive under drought stress, mechanisms involving drought resistance and drought recovery are key aspects of adaptations.
Point 7&8: Line 44: Strong drought tolerance is not acceptable definition. Please delete “strong”. / Lines 43-46: Please give some example.
Response 7&8: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 9: Lines 48-51: Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant
switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conductance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE) when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. – sounds better, but please explain what means positively correlated.
Response 9: We revised this part of the description as the following:
Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) genotypes was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conduct-ance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE), when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. It means that the performance of Pn can be regarded as the physiological response of plants under drought.
Point 10: Line 53: Reformulate this sentence. What are drought events?
Response 10: We revised the sentence as the following:
Extreme drought will likely increase in the future due to global warming.
Point 11: Lines 55-56: Are you talking about recovery or drought? Please write drought in
singular, no droughts.
Response 11: We were considering to describe the recovery from drought in this sentence. And we changed the word of “drought” in singular in the manuscript.
Point 12: Lines 62-63: In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought. – sounds better.
Response 12: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought.
Point 13: Lines 64-67: Please write the explanation.
Response 13: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 14: Lines 73-77: This is unclear and I think you should to provide a detail in Material and methods. You wrote that SMC will continue to decline. How do you mean that fixed soil moisture content decline if it is fixed?
Response 14: We are sorry for making you in confused. This paragraph (Line 72-80) described the changing of SWC in dry-down method. Next paragraph (Line 81-90) was description for the fixed SMC technique.
Point 15: Lines 78-82: What is SMS?
Response 15: We are so sorry for the mistake and revised the word as “SMC” in the manuscript.
Point 16: Lines 84-85: Unclear. Also, abbreviation SMC means soil moisture content not fixed soil moisture content
Response 16: We delete the sentence of Lines 84-85 and revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 17: Line 90: Delete “which is” and please reorganize too long sentence.
Response 17: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus, a C4 perennial rhizomatous grass, has high biomass productivity in marginal lands and expresses high CO2 fixation in low-temperature conditions, underscoring its potential as a bioenergy crop.
Point 18: Lines 101-102: Please explain how.
Response 18: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 19: Line 105: Please replace “Miscanthus” by “Miscanthus species”.
Response 19: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus species are considered to have stronger drought tolerance than another potential energy crop, switchgrass.
Point 20&21: Lines 112-117: Please join this paragraph with previous. / Lines 113-114: Sentence is not clear.
Response 20&21: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 22&23: Line 119: Please explain how drought affected this species. / Line 120: As mentioned above, M. × giganteus is not tolerant to drought – not necessary sentence.
Response 22&23: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 24: Lines 125-131: This is for “Material and methods”.
Response 24: We consider that it is important to show which kind of evaluate methodology we used in the present study. Therefore, we decide to keep this part in “Introduction”.
Point 25: Line 155: Please write with uppercase letter word “list”.
Response 25: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 26: Lines 168-169: SPAD chlorophyll meter (SPAD-502Plus, Konica Minolta, Osaka, Japan) – you should write this in Line 165 when you first mention the SPAD. Also write what does the SPAD measure, relative content of chlorophyll or?
Response 26: We revised this part of the description and added more explanation for what does the SPAD measure, please check in the manuscript.
Point 27: Line 177: What is the difference in these two experiments except the dry-down period repeating?
Response 27: About these two experiments, the dry-down experiment in Hokkaido University and the dry-down experiment in Brigham Young University, the experimental design and method were almost same. The difference in these two experiments are the environment locations (Japan and USA) and some different Miscanthus genotypes. The propose was to compare if the evaluation result will be different at two locations.
Point 28: Line 178: Why not 23 Miscanthus genotypes?
Response 28: we are sorry that it was difficult to use the same 23 Miscanthus genotypes in BYU experiment because of the separate Miscanthus plants management. Therefore, we used 14 genotypes to carry out the experiment in BYU.
Point 29: Lines 194-199: Why these parameters were not measured in the first experiment? I suggest that the results from Table 4. be shown in the figure.
Response 29: The reason we did not use the portable photosynthesis system (LI-6400XT) to measure these photosynthesis parameters in the first experiment is that it would need too much to measure and it is difficult to carry out. For using LI-6400XT, it would take 5~10 minutes to measure one plant. Therefore, it would take around 11 hours to finish all measurement with total 138 pots in the first experiment. Considering to this reason, we choose to only use SPAD chlorophyll meter for measurement. And about Table 4, we consider that it is easier to show the results by Table style so we decide to keep Table 4.
Point 30: Lines 703-797: Please check all doi numbers carefully (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 15,
16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 are not active).
Also, references 29 and 37 have not doi please enter them.
Response 30: We revised the reference part, please check in the manuscript. About references 29 and 37, we are so sorry that we cannot find the doi.
Dear review editor,
Thank you for your precious suggestion. We revised the manuscript based on your advice. Your advice helps the manuscript be more easily understanding. We responded to your point one by one. Please check the following answers and the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Tzuya Weng
Point 1, 2&3: Line 23: Do not start a sentence with “it”. /Lines 23-24: Please explain locations of experiments. / Line 24: This genetic cluster you should mention in previous sentence, where you talk
about Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285.
Response 1, 2&3: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285, align with the M. sinensis ‘Yangtze-Qinling’ genetic cluster, had relatively high principal component analysis ranking values in both two locations experiments, Hokkaido University and Brigham Young University.
Point 4: Line 31: “However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels” – sounds better.
Response 4: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels.
Point 5: Lines 37-38: “Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for
successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions.” – sounds better. Also, after this sentence, please define what a bioenergy crops are.
Response 5: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, such as sugarcane and maize, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions
Point 6: Lines 42-43: Please delete “to drought” at the end of the sentence.
Response 6: We revised the sentence as the following:
To adapt and survive under drought stress, mechanisms involving drought resistance and drought recovery are key aspects of adaptations.
Point 7&8: Line 44: Strong drought tolerance is not acceptable definition. Please delete “strong”. / Lines 43-46: Please give some example.
Response 7&8: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 9: Lines 48-51: Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant
switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conductance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE) when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. – sounds better, but please explain what means positively correlated.
Response 9: We revised this part of the description as the following:
Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) genotypes was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conduct-ance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE), when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. It means that the performance of Pn can be regarded as the physiological response of plants under drought.
Point 10: Line 53: Reformulate this sentence. What are drought events?
Response 10: We revised the sentence as the following:
Extreme drought will likely increase in the future due to global warming.
Point 11: Lines 55-56: Are you talking about recovery or drought? Please write drought in
singular, no droughts.
Response 11: We were considering to describe the recovery from drought in this sentence. And we changed the word of “drought” in singular in the manuscript.
Point 12: Lines 62-63: In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought. – sounds better.
Response 12: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought.
Point 13: Lines 64-67: Please write the explanation.
Response 13: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 14: Lines 73-77: This is unclear and I think you should to provide a detail in Material and methods. You wrote that SMC will continue to decline. How do you mean that fixed soil moisture content decline if it is fixed?
Response 14: We are sorry for making you in confused. This paragraph (Line 72-80) described the changing of SWC in dry-down method. Next paragraph (Line 81-90) was description for the fixed SMC technique.
Point 15: Lines 78-82: What is SMS?
Response 15: We are so sorry for the mistake and revised the word as “SMC” in the manuscript.
Point 16: Lines 84-85: Unclear. Also, abbreviation SMC means soil moisture content not fixed soil moisture content
Response 16: We delete the sentence of Lines 84-85 and revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 17: Line 90: Delete “which is” and please reorganize too long sentence.
Response 17: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus, a C4 perennial rhizomatous grass, has high biomass productivity in marginal lands and expresses high CO2 fixation in low-temperature conditions, underscoring its potential as a bioenergy crop.
Point 18: Lines 101-102: Please explain how.
Response 18: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 19: Line 105: Please replace “Miscanthus” by “Miscanthus species”.
Response 19: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus species are considered to have stronger drought tolerance than another potential energy crop, switchgrass.
Point 20&21: Lines 112-117: Please join this paragraph with previous. / Lines 113-114: Sentence is not clear.
Response 20&21: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 22&23: Line 119: Please explain how drought affected this species. / Line 120: As mentioned above, M. × giganteus is not tolerant to drought – not necessary sentence.
Response 22&23: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 24: Lines 125-131: This is for “Material and methods”.
Response 24: We consider that it is important to show which kind of evaluate methodology we used in the present study. Therefore, we decide to keep this part in “Introduction”.
Point 25: Line 155: Please write with uppercase letter word “list”.
Response 25: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 26: Lines 168-169: SPAD chlorophyll meter (SPAD-502Plus, Konica Minolta, Osaka, Japan) – you should write this in Line 165 when you first mention the SPAD. Also write what does the SPAD measure, relative content of chlorophyll or?
Response 26: We revised this part of the description and added more explanation for what does the SPAD measure, please check in the manuscript.
Point 27: Line 177: What is the difference in these two experiments except the dry-down period repeating?
Response 27: About these two experiments, the dry-down experiment in Hokkaido University and the dry-down experiment in Brigham Young University, the experimental design and method were almost same. The difference in these two experiments are the environment locations (Japan and USA) and some different Miscanthus genotypes. The propose was to compare if the evaluation result will be different at two locations.
Point 28: Line 178: Why not 23 Miscanthus genotypes?
Response 28: we are sorry that it was difficult to use the same 23 Miscanthus genotypes in BYU experiment because of the separate Miscanthus plants management. Therefore, we used 14 genotypes to carry out the experiment in BYU.
Point 29: Lines 194-199: Why these parameters were not measured in the first experiment? I suggest that the results from Table 4. be shown in the figure.
Response 29: The reason we did not use the portable photosynthesis system (LI-6400XT) to measure these photosynthesis parameters in the first experiment is that it would need too much to measure and it is difficult to carry out. For using LI-6400XT, it would take 5~10 minutes to measure one plant. Therefore, it would take around 11 hours to finish all measurement with total 138 pots in the first experiment. Considering to this reason, we choose to only use SPAD chlorophyll meter for measurement. And about Table 4, we consider that it is easier to show the results by Table style so we decide to keep Table 4.
Point 30: Lines 703-797: Please check all doi numbers carefully (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 15,
16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 are not active).
Also, references 29 and 37 have not doi please enter them.
Response 30: We revised the reference part, please check in the manuscript. About references 29 and 37, we are so sorry that we cannot find the doi.
Dear review editor,
Thank you for your precious suggestion. We revised the manuscript based on your advice. Your advice helps the manuscript be more easily understanding. We responded to your point one by one. Please check the following answers and the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Tzuya Weng
Point 1, 2&3: Line 23: Do not start a sentence with “it”. /Lines 23-24: Please explain locations of experiments. / Line 24: This genetic cluster you should mention in previous sentence, where you talk
about Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285.
Response 1, 2&3: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285, align with the M. sinensis ‘Yangtze-Qinling’ genetic cluster, had relatively high principal component analysis ranking values in both two locations experiments, Hokkaido University and Brigham Young University.
Point 4: Line 31: “However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels” – sounds better.
Response 4: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels.
Point 5: Lines 37-38: “Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for
successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions.” – sounds better. Also, after this sentence, please define what a bioenergy crops are.
Response 5: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, such as sugarcane and maize, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions
Point 6: Lines 42-43: Please delete “to drought” at the end of the sentence.
Response 6: We revised the sentence as the following:
To adapt and survive under drought stress, mechanisms involving drought resistance and drought recovery are key aspects of adaptations.
Point 7&8: Line 44: Strong drought tolerance is not acceptable definition. Please delete “strong”. / Lines 43-46: Please give some example.
Response 7&8: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 9: Lines 48-51: Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant
switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conductance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE) when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. – sounds better, but please explain what means positively correlated.
Response 9: We revised this part of the description as the following:
Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) genotypes was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conduct-ance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE), when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. It means that the performance of Pn can be regarded as the physiological response of plants under drought.
Point 10: Line 53: Reformulate this sentence. What are drought events?
Response 10: We revised the sentence as the following:
Extreme drought will likely increase in the future due to global warming.
Point 11: Lines 55-56: Are you talking about recovery or drought? Please write drought in
singular, no droughts.
Response 11: We were considering to describe the recovery from drought in this sentence. And we changed the word of “drought” in singular in the manuscript.
Point 12: Lines 62-63: In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought. – sounds better.
Response 12: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought.
Point 13: Lines 64-67: Please write the explanation.
Response 13: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 14: Lines 73-77: This is unclear and I think you should to provide a detail in Material and methods. You wrote that SMC will continue to decline. How do you mean that fixed soil moisture content decline if it is fixed?
Response 14: We are sorry for making you in confused. This paragraph (Line 72-80) described the changing of SWC in dry-down method. Next paragraph (Line 81-90) was description for the fixed SMC technique.
Point 15: Lines 78-82: What is SMS?
Response 15: We are so sorry for the mistake and revised the word as “SMC” in the manuscript.
Point 16: Lines 84-85: Unclear. Also, abbreviation SMC means soil moisture content not fixed soil moisture content
Response 16: We delete the sentence of Lines 84-85 and revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 17: Line 90: Delete “which is” and please reorganize too long sentence.
Response 17: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus, a C4 perennial rhizomatous grass, has high biomass productivity in marginal lands and expresses high CO2 fixation in low-temperature conditions, underscoring its potential as a bioenergy crop.
Point 18: Lines 101-102: Please explain how.
Response 18: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 19: Line 105: Please replace “Miscanthus” by “Miscanthus species”.
Response 19: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus species are considered to have stronger drought tolerance than another potential energy crop, switchgrass.
Point 20&21: Lines 112-117: Please join this paragraph with previous. / Lines 113-114: Sentence is not clear.
Response 20&21: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 22&23: Line 119: Please explain how drought affected this species. / Line 120: As mentioned above, M. × giganteus is not tolerant to drought – not necessary sentence.
Response 22&23: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 24: Lines 125-131: This is for “Material and methods”.
Response 24: We consider that it is important to show which kind of evaluate methodology we used in the present study. Therefore, we decide to keep this part in “Introduction”.
Point 25: Line 155: Please write with uppercase letter word “list”.
Response 25: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 26: Lines 168-169: SPAD chlorophyll meter (SPAD-502Plus, Konica Minolta, Osaka, Japan) – you should write this in Line 165 when you first mention the SPAD. Also write what does the SPAD measure, relative content of chlorophyll or?
Response 26: We revised this part of the description and added more explanation for what does the SPAD measure, please check in the manuscript.
Point 27: Line 177: What is the difference in these two experiments except the dry-down period repeating?
Response 27: About these two experiments, the dry-down experiment in Hokkaido University and the dry-down experiment in Brigham Young University, the experimental design and method were almost same. The difference in these two experiments are the environment locations (Japan and USA) and some different Miscanthus genotypes. The propose was to compare if the evaluation result will be different at two locations.
Point 28: Line 178: Why not 23 Miscanthus genotypes?
Response 28: we are sorry that it was difficult to use the same 23 Miscanthus genotypes in BYU experiment because of the separate Miscanthus plants management. Therefore, we used 14 genotypes to carry out the experiment in BYU.
Point 29: Lines 194-199: Why these parameters were not measured in the first experiment? I suggest that the results from Table 4. be shown in the figure.
Response 29: The reason we did not use the portable photosynthesis system (LI-6400XT) to measure these photosynthesis parameters in the first experiment is that it would need too much to measure and it is difficult to carry out. For using LI-6400XT, it would take 5~10 minutes to measure one plant. Therefore, it would take around 11 hours to finish all measurement with total 138 pots in the first experiment. Considering to this reason, we choose to only use SPAD chlorophyll meter for measurement. And about Table 4, we consider that it is easier to show the results by Table style so we decide to keep Table 4.
Point 30: Lines 703-797: Please check all doi numbers carefully (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 15,
16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 are not active).
Also, references 29 and 37 have not doi please enter them.
Response 30: We revised the reference part, please check in the manuscript. About references 29 and 37, we are so sorry that we cannot find the doi.
Dear review editor,
Thank you for your precious suggestion. We revised the manuscript based on your advice. Your advice helps the manuscript be more easily understanding. We responded to your point one by one. Please check the following answers and the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Tzuya Weng
Point 1, 2&3: Line 23: Do not start a sentence with “it”. /Lines 23-24: Please explain locations of experiments. / Line 24: This genetic cluster you should mention in previous sentence, where you talk
about Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285.
Response 1, 2&3: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285, align with the M. sinensis ‘Yangtze-Qinling’ genetic cluster, had relatively high principal component analysis ranking values in both two locations experiments, Hokkaido University and Brigham Young University.
Point 4: Line 31: “However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels” – sounds better.
Response 4: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels.
Point 5: Lines 37-38: “Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for
successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions.” – sounds better. Also, after this sentence, please define what a bioenergy crops are.
Response 5: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, such as sugarcane and maize, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions
Point 6: Lines 42-43: Please delete “to drought” at the end of the sentence.
Response 6: We revised the sentence as the following:
To adapt and survive under drought stress, mechanisms involving drought resistance and drought recovery are key aspects of adaptations.
Point 7&8: Line 44: Strong drought tolerance is not acceptable definition. Please delete “strong”. / Lines 43-46: Please give some example.
Response 7&8: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 9: Lines 48-51: Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant
switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conductance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE) when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. – sounds better, but please explain what means positively correlated.
Response 9: We revised this part of the description as the following:
Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) genotypes was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conduct-ance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE), when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. It means that the performance of Pn can be regarded as the physiological response of plants under drought.
Point 10: Line 53: Reformulate this sentence. What are drought events?
Response 10: We revised the sentence as the following:
Extreme drought will likely increase in the future due to global warming.
Point 11: Lines 55-56: Are you talking about recovery or drought? Please write drought in
singular, no droughts.
Response 11: We were considering to describe the recovery from drought in this sentence. And we changed the word of “drought” in singular in the manuscript.
Point 12: Lines 62-63: In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought. – sounds better.
Response 12: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought.
Point 13: Lines 64-67: Please write the explanation.
Response 13: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 14: Lines 73-77: This is unclear and I think you should to provide a detail in Material and methods. You wrote that SMC will continue to decline. How do you mean that fixed soil moisture content decline if it is fixed?
Response 14: We are sorry for making you in confused. This paragraph (Line 72-80) described the changing of SWC in dry-down method. Next paragraph (Line 81-90) was description for the fixed SMC technique.
Point 15: Lines 78-82: What is SMS?
Response 15: We are so sorry for the mistake and revised the word as “SMC” in the manuscript.
Point 16: Lines 84-85: Unclear. Also, abbreviation SMC means soil moisture content not fixed soil moisture content
Response 16: We delete the sentence of Lines 84-85 and revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 17: Line 90: Delete “which is” and please reorganize too long sentence.
Response 17: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus, a C4 perennial rhizomatous grass, has high biomass productivity in marginal lands and expresses high CO2 fixation in low-temperature conditions, underscoring its potential as a bioenergy crop.
Point 18: Lines 101-102: Please explain how.
Response 18: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 19: Line 105: Please replace “Miscanthus” by “Miscanthus species”.
Response 19: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus species are considered to have stronger drought tolerance than another potential energy crop, switchgrass.
Point 20&21: Lines 112-117: Please join this paragraph with previous. / Lines 113-114: Sentence is not clear.
Response 20&21: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 22&23: Line 119: Please explain how drought affected this species. / Line 120: As mentioned above, M. × giganteus is not tolerant to drought – not necessary sentence.
Response 22&23: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 24: Lines 125-131: This is for “Material and methods”.
Response 24: We consider that it is important to show which kind of evaluate methodology we used in the present study. Therefore, we decide to keep this part in “Introduction”.
Point 25: Line 155: Please write with uppercase letter word “list”.
Response 25: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 26: Lines 168-169: SPAD chlorophyll meter (SPAD-502Plus, Konica Minolta, Osaka, Japan) – you should write this in Line 165 when you first mention the SPAD. Also write what does the SPAD measure, relative content of chlorophyll or?
Response 26: We revised this part of the description and added more explanation for what does the SPAD measure, please check in the manuscript.
Point 27: Line 177: What is the difference in these two experiments except the dry-down period repeating?
Response 27: About these two experiments, the dry-down experiment in Hokkaido University and the dry-down experiment in Brigham Young University, the experimental design and method were almost same. The difference in these two experiments are the environment locations (Japan and USA) and some different Miscanthus genotypes. The propose was to compare if the evaluation result will be different at two locations.
Point 28: Line 178: Why not 23 Miscanthus genotypes?
Response 28: we are sorry that it was difficult to use the same 23 Miscanthus genotypes in BYU experiment because of the separate Miscanthus plants management. Therefore, we used 14 genotypes to carry out the experiment in BYU.
Point 29: Lines 194-199: Why these parameters were not measured in the first experiment? I suggest that the results from Table 4. be shown in the figure.
Response 29: The reason we did not use the portable photosynthesis system (LI-6400XT) to measure these photosynthesis parameters in the first experiment is that it would need too much to measure and it is difficult to carry out. For using LI-6400XT, it would take 5~10 minutes to measure one plant. Therefore, it would take around 11 hours to finish all measurement with total 138 pots in the first experiment. Considering to this reason, we choose to only use SPAD chlorophyll meter for measurement. And about Table 4, we consider that it is easier to show the results by Table style so we decide to keep Table 4.
Point 30: Lines 703-797: Please check all doi numbers carefully (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 15,
16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 are not active).
Also, references 29 and 37 have not doi please enter them.
Response 30: We revised the reference part, please check in the manuscript. About references 29 and 37, we are so sorry that we cannot find the doi.
Dear review editor,
Thank you for your precious suggestion. We revised the manuscript based on your advice. Your advice helps the manuscript be more easily understanding. We responded to your point one by one. Please check the following answers and the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Tzuya Weng
Point 1, 2&3: Line 23: Do not start a sentence with “it”. /Lines 23-24: Please explain locations of experiments. / Line 24: This genetic cluster you should mention in previous sentence, where you talk
about Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285.
Response 1, 2&3: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285, align with the M. sinensis ‘Yangtze-Qinling’ genetic cluster, had relatively high principal component analysis ranking values in both two locations experiments, Hokkaido University and Brigham Young University.
Point 4: Line 31: “However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels” – sounds better.
Response 4: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels.
Point 5: Lines 37-38: “Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for
successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions.” – sounds better. Also, after this sentence, please define what a bioenergy crops are.
Response 5: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, such as sugarcane and maize, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions
Point 6: Lines 42-43: Please delete “to drought” at the end of the sentence.
Response 6: We revised the sentence as the following:
To adapt and survive under drought stress, mechanisms involving drought resistance and drought recovery are key aspects of adaptations.
Point 7&8: Line 44: Strong drought tolerance is not acceptable definition. Please delete “strong”. / Lines 43-46: Please give some example.
Response 7&8: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 9: Lines 48-51: Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant
switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conductance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE) when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. – sounds better, but please explain what means positively correlated.
Response 9: We revised this part of the description as the following:
Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) genotypes was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conduct-ance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE), when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. It means that the performance of Pn can be regarded as the physiological response of plants under drought.
Point 10: Line 53: Reformulate this sentence. What are drought events?
Response 10: We revised the sentence as the following:
Extreme drought will likely increase in the future due to global warming.
Point 11: Lines 55-56: Are you talking about recovery or drought? Please write drought in
singular, no droughts.
Response 11: We were considering to describe the recovery from drought in this sentence. And we changed the word of “drought” in singular in the manuscript.
Point 12: Lines 62-63: In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought. – sounds better.
Response 12: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought.
Point 13: Lines 64-67: Please write the explanation.
Response 13: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 14: Lines 73-77: This is unclear and I think you should to provide a detail in Material and methods. You wrote that SMC will continue to decline. How do you mean that fixed soil moisture content decline if it is fixed?
Response 14: We are sorry for making you in confused. This paragraph (Line 72-80) described the changing of SWC in dry-down method. Next paragraph (Line 81-90) was description for the fixed SMC technique.
Point 15: Lines 78-82: What is SMS?
Response 15: We are so sorry for the mistake and revised the word as “SMC” in the manuscript.
Point 16: Lines 84-85: Unclear. Also, abbreviation SMC means soil moisture content not fixed soil moisture content
Response 16: We delete the sentence of Lines 84-85 and revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 17: Line 90: Delete “which is” and please reorganize too long sentence.
Response 17: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus, a C4 perennial rhizomatous grass, has high biomass productivity in marginal lands and expresses high CO2 fixation in low-temperature conditions, underscoring its potential as a bioenergy crop.
Point 18: Lines 101-102: Please explain how.
Response 18: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 19: Line 105: Please replace “Miscanthus” by “Miscanthus species”.
Response 19: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus species are considered to have stronger drought tolerance than another potential energy crop, switchgrass.
Point 20&21: Lines 112-117: Please join this paragraph with previous. / Lines 113-114: Sentence is not clear.
Response 20&21: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 22&23: Line 119: Please explain how drought affected this species. / Line 120: As mentioned above, M. × giganteus is not tolerant to drought – not necessary sentence.
Response 22&23: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 24: Lines 125-131: This is for “Material and methods”.
Response 24: We consider that it is important to show which kind of evaluate methodology we used in the present study. Therefore, we decide to keep this part in “Introduction”.
Point 25: Line 155: Please write with uppercase letter word “list”.
Response 25: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 26: Lines 168-169: SPAD chlorophyll meter (SPAD-502Plus, Konica Minolta, Osaka, Japan) – you should write this in Line 165 when you first mention the SPAD. Also write what does the SPAD measure, relative content of chlorophyll or?
Response 26: We revised this part of the description and added more explanation for what does the SPAD measure, please check in the manuscript.
Point 27: Line 177: What is the difference in these two experiments except the dry-down period repeating?
Response 27: About these two experiments, the dry-down experiment in Hokkaido University and the dry-down experiment in Brigham Young University, the experimental design and method were almost same. The difference in these two experiments are the environment locations (Japan and USA) and some different Miscanthus genotypes. The propose was to compare if the evaluation result will be different at two locations.
Point 28: Line 178: Why not 23 Miscanthus genotypes?
Response 28: we are sorry that it was difficult to use the same 23 Miscanthus genotypes in BYU experiment because of the separate Miscanthus plants management. Therefore, we used 14 genotypes to carry out the experiment in BYU.
Point 29: Lines 194-199: Why these parameters were not measured in the first experiment? I suggest that the results from Table 4. be shown in the figure.
Response 29: The reason we did not use the portable photosynthesis system (LI-6400XT) to measure these photosynthesis parameters in the first experiment is that it would need too much to measure and it is difficult to carry out. For using LI-6400XT, it would take 5~10 minutes to measure one plant. Therefore, it would take around 11 hours to finish all measurement with total 138 pots in the first experiment. Considering to this reason, we choose to only use SPAD chlorophyll meter for measurement. And about Table 4, we consider that it is easier to show the results by Table style so we decide to keep Table 4.
Point 30: Lines 703-797: Please check all doi numbers carefully (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 15,
16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 are not active).
Also, references 29 and 37 have not doi please enter them.
Response 30: We revised the reference part, please check in the manuscript. About references 29 and 37, we are so sorry that we cannot find the doi.
Dear review editor,
Thank you for your precious suggestion. We revised the manuscript based on your advice. Your advice helps the manuscript be more easily understanding. We responded to your point one by one. Please check the following answers and the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Tzuya Weng
Point 1, 2&3: Line 23: Do not start a sentence with “it”. /Lines 23-24: Please explain locations of experiments. / Line 24: This genetic cluster you should mention in previous sentence, where you talk
about Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285.
Response 1, 2&3: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285, align with the M. sinensis ‘Yangtze-Qinling’ genetic cluster, had relatively high principal component analysis ranking values in both two locations experiments, Hokkaido University and Brigham Young University.
Point 4: Line 31: “However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels” – sounds better.
Response 4: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels.
Point 5: Lines 37-38: “Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for
successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions.” – sounds better. Also, after this sentence, please define what a bioenergy crops are.
Response 5: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, such as sugarcane and maize, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions
Point 6: Lines 42-43: Please delete “to drought” at the end of the sentence.
Response 6: We revised the sentence as the following:
To adapt and survive under drought stress, mechanisms involving drought resistance and drought recovery are key aspects of adaptations.
Point 7&8: Line 44: Strong drought tolerance is not acceptable definition. Please delete “strong”. / Lines 43-46: Please give some example.
Response 7&8: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 9: Lines 48-51: Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant
switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conductance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE) when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. – sounds better, but please explain what means positively correlated.
Response 9: We revised this part of the description as the following:
Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) genotypes was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conduct-ance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE), when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. It means that the performance of Pn can be regarded as the physiological response of plants under drought.
Point 10: Line 53: Reformulate this sentence. What are drought events?
Response 10: We revised the sentence as the following:
Extreme drought will likely increase in the future due to global warming.
Point 11: Lines 55-56: Are you talking about recovery or drought? Please write drought in
singular, no droughts.
Response 11: We were considering to describe the recovery from drought in this sentence. And we changed the word of “drought” in singular in the manuscript.
Point 12: Lines 62-63: In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought. – sounds better.
Response 12: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought.
Point 13: Lines 64-67: Please write the explanation.
Response 13: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 14: Lines 73-77: This is unclear and I think you should to provide a detail in Material and methods. You wrote that SMC will continue to decline. How do you mean that fixed soil moisture content decline if it is fixed?
Response 14: We are sorry for making you in confused. This paragraph (Line 72-80) described the changing of SWC in dry-down method. Next paragraph (Line 81-90) was description for the fixed SMC technique.
Point 15: Lines 78-82: What is SMS?
Response 15: We are so sorry for the mistake and revised the word as “SMC” in the manuscript.
Point 16: Lines 84-85: Unclear. Also, abbreviation SMC means soil moisture content not fixed soil moisture content
Response 16: We delete the sentence of Lines 84-85 and revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 17: Line 90: Delete “which is” and please reorganize too long sentence.
Response 17: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus, a C4 perennial rhizomatous grass, has high biomass productivity in marginal lands and expresses high CO2 fixation in low-temperature conditions, underscoring its potential as a bioenergy crop.
Point 18: Lines 101-102: Please explain how.
Response 18: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 19: Line 105: Please replace “Miscanthus” by “Miscanthus species”.
Response 19: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus species are considered to have stronger drought tolerance than another potential energy crop, switchgrass.
Point 20&21: Lines 112-117: Please join this paragraph with previous. / Lines 113-114: Sentence is not clear.
Response 20&21: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 22&23: Line 119: Please explain how drought affected this species. / Line 120: As mentioned above, M. × giganteus is not tolerant to drought – not necessary sentence.
Response 22&23: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 24: Lines 125-131: This is for “Material and methods”.
Response 24: We consider that it is important to show which kind of evaluate methodology we used in the present study. Therefore, we decide to keep this part in “Introduction”.
Point 25: Line 155: Please write with uppercase letter word “list”.
Response 25: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 26: Lines 168-169: SPAD chlorophyll meter (SPAD-502Plus, Konica Minolta, Osaka, Japan) – you should write this in Line 165 when you first mention the SPAD. Also write what does the SPAD measure, relative content of chlorophyll or?
Response 26: We revised this part of the description and added more explanation for what does the SPAD measure, please check in the manuscript.
Point 27: Line 177: What is the difference in these two experiments except the dry-down period repeating?
Response 27: About these two experiments, the dry-down experiment in Hokkaido University and the dry-down experiment in Brigham Young University, the experimental design and method were almost same. The difference in these two experiments are the environment locations (Japan and USA) and some different Miscanthus genotypes. The propose was to compare if the evaluation result will be different at two locations.
Point 28: Line 178: Why not 23 Miscanthus genotypes?
Response 28: we are sorry that it was difficult to use the same 23 Miscanthus genotypes in BYU experiment because of the separate Miscanthus plants management. Therefore, we used 14 genotypes to carry out the experiment in BYU.
Point 29: Lines 194-199: Why these parameters were not measured in the first experiment? I suggest that the results from Table 4. be shown in the figure.
Response 29: The reason we did not use the portable photosynthesis system (LI-6400XT) to measure these photosynthesis parameters in the first experiment is that it would need too much to measure and it is difficult to carry out. For using LI-6400XT, it would take 5~10 minutes to measure one plant. Therefore, it would take around 11 hours to finish all measurement with total 138 pots in the first experiment. Considering to this reason, we choose to only use SPAD chlorophyll meter for measurement. And about Table 4, we consider that it is easier to show the results by Table style so we decide to keep Table 4.
Point 30: Lines 703-797: Please check all doi numbers carefully (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 15,
16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 are not active).
Also, references 29 and 37 have not doi please enter them.
Response 30: We revised the reference part, please check in the manuscript. About references 29 and 37, we are so sorry that we cannot find the doi.
Dear review editor,
Thank you for your precious suggestion. We revised the manuscript based on your advice. Your advice helps the manuscript be more easily understanding. We responded to your point one by one. Please check the following answers and the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Tzuya Weng
Point 1, 2&3: Line 23: Do not start a sentence with “it”. /Lines 23-24: Please explain locations of experiments. / Line 24: This genetic cluster you should mention in previous sentence, where you talk
about Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285.
Response 1, 2&3: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285, align with the M. sinensis ‘Yangtze-Qinling’ genetic cluster, had relatively high principal component analysis ranking values in both two locations experiments, Hokkaido University and Brigham Young University.
Point 4: Line 31: “However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels” – sounds better.
Response 4: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels.
Point 5: Lines 37-38: “Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for
successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions.” – sounds better. Also, after this sentence, please define what a bioenergy crops are.
Response 5: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, such as sugarcane and maize, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions
Point 6: Lines 42-43: Please delete “to drought” at the end of the sentence.
Response 6: We revised the sentence as the following:
To adapt and survive under drought stress, mechanisms involving drought resistance and drought recovery are key aspects of adaptations.
Point 7&8: Line 44: Strong drought tolerance is not acceptable definition. Please delete “strong”. / Lines 43-46: Please give some example.
Response 7&8: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 9: Lines 48-51: Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant
switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conductance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE) when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. – sounds better, but please explain what means positively correlated.
Response 9: We revised this part of the description as the following:
Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) genotypes was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conduct-ance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE), when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. It means that the performance of Pn can be regarded as the physiological response of plants under drought.
Point 10: Line 53: Reformulate this sentence. What are drought events?
Response 10: We revised the sentence as the following:
Extreme drought will likely increase in the future due to global warming.
Point 11: Lines 55-56: Are you talking about recovery or drought? Please write drought in
singular, no droughts.
Response 11: We were considering to describe the recovery from drought in this sentence. And we changed the word of “drought” in singular in the manuscript.
Point 12: Lines 62-63: In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought. – sounds better.
Response 12: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought.
Point 13: Lines 64-67: Please write the explanation.
Response 13: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 14: Lines 73-77: This is unclear and I think you should to provide a detail in Material and methods. You wrote that SMC will continue to decline. How do you mean that fixed soil moisture content decline if it is fixed?
Response 14: We are sorry for making you in confused. This paragraph (Line 72-80) described the changing of SWC in dry-down method. Next paragraph (Line 81-90) was description for the fixed SMC technique.
Point 15: Lines 78-82: What is SMS?
Response 15: We are so sorry for the mistake and revised the word as “SMC” in the manuscript.
Point 16: Lines 84-85: Unclear. Also, abbreviation SMC means soil moisture content not fixed soil moisture content
Response 16: We delete the sentence of Lines 84-85 and revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 17: Line 90: Delete “which is” and please reorganize too long sentence.
Response 17: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus, a C4 perennial rhizomatous grass, has high biomass productivity in marginal lands and expresses high CO2 fixation in low-temperature conditions, underscoring its potential as a bioenergy crop.
Point 18: Lines 101-102: Please explain how.
Response 18: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 19: Line 105: Please replace “Miscanthus” by “Miscanthus species”.
Response 19: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus species are considered to have stronger drought tolerance than another potential energy crop, switchgrass.
Point 20&21: Lines 112-117: Please join this paragraph with previous. / Lines 113-114: Sentence is not clear.
Response 20&21: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 22&23: Line 119: Please explain how drought affected this species. / Line 120: As mentioned above, M. × giganteus is not tolerant to drought – not necessary sentence.
Response 22&23: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 24: Lines 125-131: This is for “Material and methods”.
Response 24: We consider that it is important to show which kind of evaluate methodology we used in the present study. Therefore, we decide to keep this part in “Introduction”.
Point 25: Line 155: Please write with uppercase letter word “list”.
Response 25: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 26: Lines 168-169: SPAD chlorophyll meter (SPAD-502Plus, Konica Minolta, Osaka, Japan) – you should write this in Line 165 when you first mention the SPAD. Also write what does the SPAD measure, relative content of chlorophyll or?
Response 26: We revised this part of the description and added more explanation for what does the SPAD measure, please check in the manuscript.
Point 27: Line 177: What is the difference in these two experiments except the dry-down period repeating?
Response 27: About these two experiments, the dry-down experiment in Hokkaido University and the dry-down experiment in Brigham Young University, the experimental design and method were almost same. The difference in these two experiments are the environment locations (Japan and USA) and some different Miscanthus genotypes. The propose was to compare if the evaluation result will be different at two locations.
Point 28: Line 178: Why not 23 Miscanthus genotypes?
Response 28: we are sorry that it was difficult to use the same 23 Miscanthus genotypes in BYU experiment because of the separate Miscanthus plants management. Therefore, we used 14 genotypes to carry out the experiment in BYU.
Point 29: Lines 194-199: Why these parameters were not measured in the first experiment? I suggest that the results from Table 4. be shown in the figure.
Response 29: The reason we did not use the portable photosynthesis system (LI-6400XT) to measure these photosynthesis parameters in the first experiment is that it would need too much to measure and it is difficult to carry out. For using LI-6400XT, it would take 5~10 minutes to measure one plant. Therefore, it would take around 11 hours to finish all measurement with total 138 pots in the first experiment. Considering to this reason, we choose to only use SPAD chlorophyll meter for measurement. And about Table 4, we consider that it is easier to show the results by Table style so we decide to keep Table 4.
Point 30: Lines 703-797: Please check all doi numbers carefully (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 15,
16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 are not active).
Also, references 29 and 37 have not doi please enter them.
Response 30: We revised the reference part, please check in the manuscript. About references 29 and 37, we are so sorry that we cannot find the doi.
Dear review editor,
Thank you for your precious suggestion. We revised the manuscript based on your advice. Your advice helps the manuscript be more easily understanding. We responded to your point one by one. Please check the following answers and the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Tzuya Weng
Point 1, 2&3: Line 23: Do not start a sentence with “it”. /Lines 23-24: Please explain locations of experiments. / Line 24: This genetic cluster you should mention in previous sentence, where you talk
about Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285.
Response 1, 2&3: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285, align with the M. sinensis ‘Yangtze-Qinling’ genetic cluster, had relatively high principal component analysis ranking values in both two locations experiments, Hokkaido University and Brigham Young University.
Point 4: Line 31: “However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels” – sounds better.
Response 4: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels.
Point 5: Lines 37-38: “Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for
successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions.” – sounds better. Also, after this sentence, please define what a bioenergy crops are.
Response 5: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, such as sugarcane and maize, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions
Point 6: Lines 42-43: Please delete “to drought” at the end of the sentence.
Response 6: We revised the sentence as the following:
To adapt and survive under drought stress, mechanisms involving drought resistance and drought recovery are key aspects of adaptations.
Point 7&8: Line 44: Strong drought tolerance is not acceptable definition. Please delete “strong”. / Lines 43-46: Please give some example.
Response 7&8: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 9: Lines 48-51: Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant
switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conductance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE) when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. – sounds better, but please explain what means positively correlated.
Response 9: We revised this part of the description as the following:
Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) genotypes was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conduct-ance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE), when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. It means that the performance of Pn can be regarded as the physiological response of plants under drought.
Point 10: Line 53: Reformulate this sentence. What are drought events?
Response 10: We revised the sentence as the following:
Extreme drought will likely increase in the future due to global warming.
Point 11: Lines 55-56: Are you talking about recovery or drought? Please write drought in
singular, no droughts.
Response 11: We were considering to describe the recovery from drought in this sentence. And we changed the word of “drought” in singular in the manuscript.
Point 12: Lines 62-63: In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought. – sounds better.
Response 12: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought.
Point 13: Lines 64-67: Please write the explanation.
Response 13: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 14: Lines 73-77: This is unclear and I think you should to provide a detail in Material and methods. You wrote that SMC will continue to decline. How do you mean that fixed soil moisture content decline if it is fixed?
Response 14: We are sorry for making you in confused. This paragraph (Line 72-80) described the changing of SWC in dry-down method. Next paragraph (Line 81-90) was description for the fixed SMC technique.
Point 15: Lines 78-82: What is SMS?
Response 15: We are so sorry for the mistake and revised the word as “SMC” in the manuscript.
Point 16: Lines 84-85: Unclear. Also, abbreviation SMC means soil moisture content not fixed soil moisture content
Response 16: We delete the sentence of Lines 84-85 and revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 17: Line 90: Delete “which is” and please reorganize too long sentence.
Response 17: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus, a C4 perennial rhizomatous grass, has high biomass productivity in marginal lands and expresses high CO2 fixation in low-temperature conditions, underscoring its potential as a bioenergy crop.
Point 18: Lines 101-102: Please explain how.
Response 18: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 19: Line 105: Please replace “Miscanthus” by “Miscanthus species”.
Response 19: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus species are considered to have stronger drought tolerance than another potential energy crop, switchgrass.
Point 20&21: Lines 112-117: Please join this paragraph with previous. / Lines 113-114: Sentence is not clear.
Response 20&21: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 22&23: Line 119: Please explain how drought affected this species. / Line 120: As mentioned above, M. × giganteus is not tolerant to drought – not necessary sentence.
Response 22&23: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 24: Lines 125-131: This is for “Material and methods”.
Response 24: We consider that it is important to show which kind of evaluate methodology we used in the present study. Therefore, we decide to keep this part in “Introduction”.
Point 25: Line 155: Please write with uppercase letter word “list”.
Response 25: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 26: Lines 168-169: SPAD chlorophyll meter (SPAD-502Plus, Konica Minolta, Osaka, Japan) – you should write this in Line 165 when you first mention the SPAD. Also write what does the SPAD measure, relative content of chlorophyll or?
Response 26: We revised this part of the description and added more explanation for what does the SPAD measure, please check in the manuscript.
Point 27: Line 177: What is the difference in these two experiments except the dry-down period repeating?
Response 27: About these two experiments, the dry-down experiment in Hokkaido University and the dry-down experiment in Brigham Young University, the experimental design and method were almost same. The difference in these two experiments are the environment locations (Japan and USA) and some different Miscanthus genotypes. The propose was to compare if the evaluation result will be different at two locations.
Point 28: Line 178: Why not 23 Miscanthus genotypes?
Response 28: we are sorry that it was difficult to use the same 23 Miscanthus genotypes in BYU experiment because of the separate Miscanthus plants management. Therefore, we used 14 genotypes to carry out the experiment in BYU.
Point 29: Lines 194-199: Why these parameters were not measured in the first experiment? I suggest that the results from Table 4. be shown in the figure.
Response 29: The reason we did not use the portable photosynthesis system (LI-6400XT) to measure these photosynthesis parameters in the first experiment is that it would need too much to measure and it is difficult to carry out. For using LI-6400XT, it would take 5~10 minutes to measure one plant. Therefore, it would take around 11 hours to finish all measurement with total 138 pots in the first experiment. Considering to this reason, we choose to only use SPAD chlorophyll meter for measurement. And about Table 4, we consider that it is easier to show the results by Table style so we decide to keep Table 4.
Point 30: Lines 703-797: Please check all doi numbers carefully (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 15,
16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 are not active).
Also, references 29 and 37 have not doi please enter them.
Response 30: We revised the reference part, please check in the manuscript. About references 29 and 37, we are so sorry that we cannot find the doi.
Dear review editor,
Thank you for your precious suggestion. We revised the manuscript based on your advice. Your advice helps the manuscript be more easily understanding. We responded to your point one by one. Please check the following answers and the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Tzuya Weng
Point 1, 2&3: Line 23: Do not start a sentence with “it”. /Lines 23-24: Please explain locations of experiments. / Line 24: This genetic cluster you should mention in previous sentence, where you talk
about Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285.
Response 1, 2&3: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285, align with the M. sinensis ‘Yangtze-Qinling’ genetic cluster, had relatively high principal component analysis ranking values in both two locations experiments, Hokkaido University and Brigham Young University.
Point 4: Line 31: “However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels” – sounds better.
Response 4: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels.
Point 5: Lines 37-38: “Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for
successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions.” – sounds better. Also, after this sentence, please define what a bioenergy crops are.
Response 5: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, such as sugarcane and maize, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions
Point 6: Lines 42-43: Please delete “to drought” at the end of the sentence.
Response 6: We revised the sentence as the following:
To adapt and survive under drought stress, mechanisms involving drought resistance and drought recovery are key aspects of adaptations.
Point 7&8: Line 44: Strong drought tolerance is not acceptable definition. Please delete “strong”. / Lines 43-46: Please give some example.
Response 7&8: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 9: Lines 48-51: Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant
switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conductance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE) when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. – sounds better, but please explain what means positively correlated.
Response 9: We revised this part of the description as the following:
Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) genotypes was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conduct-ance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE), when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. It means that the performance of Pn can be regarded as the physiological response of plants under drought.
Point 10: Line 53: Reformulate this sentence. What are drought events?
Response 10: We revised the sentence as the following:
Extreme drought will likely increase in the future due to global warming.
Point 11: Lines 55-56: Are you talking about recovery or drought? Please write drought in
singular, no droughts.
Response 11: We were considering to describe the recovery from drought in this sentence. And we changed the word of “drought” in singular in the manuscript.
Point 12: Lines 62-63: In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought. – sounds better.
Response 12: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought.
Point 13: Lines 64-67: Please write the explanation.
Response 13: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 14: Lines 73-77: This is unclear and I think you should to provide a detail in Material and methods. You wrote that SMC will continue to decline. How do you mean that fixed soil moisture content decline if it is fixed?
Response 14: We are sorry for making you in confused. This paragraph (Line 72-80) described the changing of SWC in dry-down method. Next paragraph (Line 81-90) was description for the fixed SMC technique.
Point 15: Lines 78-82: What is SMS?
Response 15: We are so sorry for the mistake and revised the word as “SMC” in the manuscript.
Point 16: Lines 84-85: Unclear. Also, abbreviation SMC means soil moisture content not fixed soil moisture content
Response 16: We delete the sentence of Lines 84-85 and revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 17: Line 90: Delete “which is” and please reorganize too long sentence.
Response 17: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus, a C4 perennial rhizomatous grass, has high biomass productivity in marginal lands and expresses high CO2 fixation in low-temperature conditions, underscoring its potential as a bioenergy crop.
Point 18: Lines 101-102: Please explain how.
Response 18: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 19: Line 105: Please replace “Miscanthus” by “Miscanthus species”.
Response 19: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus species are considered to have stronger drought tolerance than another potential energy crop, switchgrass.
Point 20&21: Lines 112-117: Please join this paragraph with previous. / Lines 113-114: Sentence is not clear.
Response 20&21: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 22&23: Line 119: Please explain how drought affected this species. / Line 120: As mentioned above, M. × giganteus is not tolerant to drought – not necessary sentence.
Response 22&23: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 24: Lines 125-131: This is for “Material and methods”.
Response 24: We consider that it is important to show which kind of evaluate methodology we used in the present study. Therefore, we decide to keep this part in “Introduction”.
Point 25: Line 155: Please write with uppercase letter word “list”.
Response 25: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 26: Lines 168-169: SPAD chlorophyll meter (SPAD-502Plus, Konica Minolta, Osaka, Japan) – you should write this in Line 165 when you first mention the SPAD. Also write what does the SPAD measure, relative content of chlorophyll or?
Response 26: We revised this part of the description and added more explanation for what does the SPAD measure, please check in the manuscript.
Point 27: Line 177: What is the difference in these two experiments except the dry-down period repeating?
Response 27: About these two experiments, the dry-down experiment in Hokkaido University and the dry-down experiment in Brigham Young University, the experimental design and method were almost same. The difference in these two experiments are the environment locations (Japan and USA) and some different Miscanthus genotypes. The propose was to compare if the evaluation result will be different at two locations.
Point 28: Line 178: Why not 23 Miscanthus genotypes?
Response 28: we are sorry that it was difficult to use the same 23 Miscanthus genotypes in BYU experiment because of the separate Miscanthus plants management. Therefore, we used 14 genotypes to carry out the experiment in BYU.
Point 29: Lines 194-199: Why these parameters were not measured in the first experiment? I suggest that the results from Table 4. be shown in the figure.
Response 29: The reason we did not use the portable photosynthesis system (LI-6400XT) to measure these photosynthesis parameters in the first experiment is that it would need too much to measure and it is difficult to carry out. For using LI-6400XT, it would take 5~10 minutes to measure one plant. Therefore, it would take around 11 hours to finish all measurement with total 138 pots in the first experiment. Considering to this reason, we choose to only use SPAD chlorophyll meter for measurement. And about Table 4, we consider that it is easier to show the results by Table style so we decide to keep Table 4.
Point 30: Lines 703-797: Please check all doi numbers carefully (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 15,
16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 are not active).
Also, references 29 and 37 have not doi please enter them.
Response 30: We revised the reference part, please check in the manuscript. About references 29 and 37, we are so sorry that we cannot find the doi.
Dear review editor,
Thank you for your precious suggestion. We revised the manuscript based on your advice. Your advice helps the manuscript be more easily understanding. We responded to your point one by one. Please check the following answers and the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Tzuya Weng
Point 1, 2&3: Line 23: Do not start a sentence with “it”. /Lines 23-24: Please explain locations of experiments. / Line 24: This genetic cluster you should mention in previous sentence, where you talk
about Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285.
Response 1, 2&3: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285, align with the M. sinensis ‘Yangtze-Qinling’ genetic cluster, had relatively high principal component analysis ranking values in both two locations experiments, Hokkaido University and Brigham Young University.
Point 4: Line 31: “However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels” – sounds better.
Response 4: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels.
Point 5: Lines 37-38: “Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for
successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions.” – sounds better. Also, after this sentence, please define what a bioenergy crops are.
Response 5: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, such as sugarcane and maize, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions
Point 6: Lines 42-43: Please delete “to drought” at the end of the sentence.
Response 6: We revised the sentence as the following:
To adapt and survive under drought stress, mechanisms involving drought resistance and drought recovery are key aspects of adaptations.
Point 7&8: Line 44: Strong drought tolerance is not acceptable definition. Please delete “strong”. / Lines 43-46: Please give some example.
Response 7&8: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 9: Lines 48-51: Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant
switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conductance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE) when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. – sounds better, but please explain what means positively correlated.
Response 9: We revised this part of the description as the following:
Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) genotypes was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conduct-ance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE), when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. It means that the performance of Pn can be regarded as the physiological response of plants under drought.
Point 10: Line 53: Reformulate this sentence. What are drought events?
Response 10: We revised the sentence as the following:
Extreme drought will likely increase in the future due to global warming.
Point 11: Lines 55-56: Are you talking about recovery or drought? Please write drought in
singular, no droughts.
Response 11: We were considering to describe the recovery from drought in this sentence. And we changed the word of “drought” in singular in the manuscript.
Point 12: Lines 62-63: In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought. – sounds better.
Response 12: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought.
Point 13: Lines 64-67: Please write the explanation.
Response 13: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 14: Lines 73-77: This is unclear and I think you should to provide a detail in Material and methods. You wrote that SMC will continue to decline. How do you mean that fixed soil moisture content decline if it is fixed?
Response 14: We are sorry for making you in confused. This paragraph (Line 72-80) described the changing of SWC in dry-down method. Next paragraph (Line 81-90) was description for the fixed SMC technique.
Point 15: Lines 78-82: What is SMS?
Response 15: We are so sorry for the mistake and revised the word as “SMC” in the manuscript.
Point 16: Lines 84-85: Unclear. Also, abbreviation SMC means soil moisture content not fixed soil moisture content
Response 16: We delete the sentence of Lines 84-85 and revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 17: Line 90: Delete “which is” and please reorganize too long sentence.
Response 17: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus, a C4 perennial rhizomatous grass, has high biomass productivity in marginal lands and expresses high CO2 fixation in low-temperature conditions, underscoring its potential as a bioenergy crop.
Point 18: Lines 101-102: Please explain how.
Response 18: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 19: Line 105: Please replace “Miscanthus” by “Miscanthus species”.
Response 19: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus species are considered to have stronger drought tolerance than another potential energy crop, switchgrass.
Point 20&21: Lines 112-117: Please join this paragraph with previous. / Lines 113-114: Sentence is not clear.
Response 20&21: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 22&23: Line 119: Please explain how drought affected this species. / Line 120: As mentioned above, M. × giganteus is not tolerant to drought – not necessary sentence.
Response 22&23: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 24: Lines 125-131: This is for “Material and methods”.
Response 24: We consider that it is important to show which kind of evaluate methodology we used in the present study. Therefore, we decide to keep this part in “Introduction”.
Point 25: Line 155: Please write with uppercase letter word “list”.
Response 25: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 26: Lines 168-169: SPAD chlorophyll meter (SPAD-502Plus, Konica Minolta, Osaka, Japan) – you should write this in Line 165 when you first mention the SPAD. Also write what does the SPAD measure, relative content of chlorophyll or?
Response 26: We revised this part of the description and added more explanation for what does the SPAD measure, please check in the manuscript.
Point 27: Line 177: What is the difference in these two experiments except the dry-down period repeating?
Response 27: About these two experiments, the dry-down experiment in Hokkaido University and the dry-down experiment in Brigham Young University, the experimental design and method were almost same. The difference in these two experiments are the environment locations (Japan and USA) and some different Miscanthus genotypes. The propose was to compare if the evaluation result will be different at two locations.
Point 28: Line 178: Why not 23 Miscanthus genotypes?
Response 28: we are sorry that it was difficult to use the same 23 Miscanthus genotypes in BYU experiment because of the separate Miscanthus plants management. Therefore, we used 14 genotypes to carry out the experiment in BYU.
Point 29: Lines 194-199: Why these parameters were not measured in the first experiment? I suggest that the results from Table 4. be shown in the figure.
Response 29: The reason we did not use the portable photosynthesis system (LI-6400XT) to measure these photosynthesis parameters in the first experiment is that it would need too much to measure and it is difficult to carry out. For using LI-6400XT, it would take 5~10 minutes to measure one plant. Therefore, it would take around 11 hours to finish all measurement with total 138 pots in the first experiment. Considering to this reason, we choose to only use SPAD chlorophyll meter for measurement. And about Table 4, we consider that it is easier to show the results by Table style so we decide to keep Table 4.
Point 30: Lines 703-797: Please check all doi numbers carefully (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 15,
16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 are not active).
Also, references 29 and 37 have not doi please enter them.
Response 30: We revised the reference part, please check in the manuscript. About references 29 and 37, we are so sorry that we cannot find the doi.
Dear review editor,
Thank you for your precious suggestion. We revised the manuscript based on your advice. Your advice helps the manuscript be more easily understanding. We responded to your point one by one. Please check the following answers and the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Tzuya Weng
Point 1, 2&3: Line 23: Do not start a sentence with “it”. /Lines 23-24: Please explain locations of experiments. / Line 24: This genetic cluster you should mention in previous sentence, where you talk
about Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285.
Response 1, 2&3: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus sinensis PMS-285, align with the M. sinensis ‘Yangtze-Qinling’ genetic cluster, had relatively high principal component analysis ranking values in both two locations experiments, Hokkaido University and Brigham Young University.
Point 4: Line 31: “However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels” – sounds better.
Response 4: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
However, the fixed-SMC experiment may be good for understanding the physiological responses of plants to relatively constant water-stress levels.
Point 5: Lines 37-38: “Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for
successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions.” – sounds better. Also, after this sentence, please define what a bioenergy crops are.
Response 5: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
Drought stress limits plant growth and yield, and acts as a barrier for successful cultivation of bioenergy crops, such as sugarcane and maize, particularly in world arid and semi-arid regions
Point 6: Lines 42-43: Please delete “to drought” at the end of the sentence.
Response 6: We revised the sentence as the following:
To adapt and survive under drought stress, mechanisms involving drought resistance and drought recovery are key aspects of adaptations.
Point 7&8: Line 44: Strong drought tolerance is not acceptable definition. Please delete “strong”. / Lines 43-46: Please give some example.
Response 7&8: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 9: Lines 48-51: Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant
switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conductance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE) when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. – sounds better, but please explain what means positively correlated.
Response 9: We revised this part of the description as the following:
Liu et al. (2015) reported that the photosynthetic rate of drought-tolerant switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) genotypes was positively correlated with other physiological parameters, such as relative water content, transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conduct-ance (gs), and water-use efficiency (WUE), when subjected to low-water conditions [5]. It means that the performance of Pn can be regarded as the physiological response of plants under drought.
Point 10: Line 53: Reformulate this sentence. What are drought events?
Response 10: We revised the sentence as the following:
Extreme drought will likely increase in the future due to global warming.
Point 11: Lines 55-56: Are you talking about recovery or drought? Please write drought in
singular, no droughts.
Response 11: We were considering to describe the recovery from drought in this sentence. And we changed the word of “drought” in singular in the manuscript.
Point 12: Lines 62-63: In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought. – sounds better.
Response 12: We revised the sentence based on the comment as the following:
In addition, catalase activity of pea (Pisum sativum L., cv. Progress 9), which is involved in removing H2O2 molecules, increased during drought.
Point 13: Lines 64-67: Please write the explanation.
Response 13: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 14: Lines 73-77: This is unclear and I think you should to provide a detail in Material and methods. You wrote that SMC will continue to decline. How do you mean that fixed soil moisture content decline if it is fixed?
Response 14: We are sorry for making you in confused. This paragraph (Line 72-80) described the changing of SWC in dry-down method. Next paragraph (Line 81-90) was description for the fixed SMC technique.
Point 15: Lines 78-82: What is SMS?
Response 15: We are so sorry for the mistake and revised the word as “SMC” in the manuscript.
Point 16: Lines 84-85: Unclear. Also, abbreviation SMC means soil moisture content not fixed soil moisture content
Response 16: We delete the sentence of Lines 84-85 and revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 17: Line 90: Delete “which is” and please reorganize too long sentence.
Response 17: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus, a C4 perennial rhizomatous grass, has high biomass productivity in marginal lands and expresses high CO2 fixation in low-temperature conditions, underscoring its potential as a bioenergy crop.
Point 18: Lines 101-102: Please explain how.
Response 18: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 19: Line 105: Please replace “Miscanthus” by “Miscanthus species”.
Response 19: We revised the sentence as the following:
Miscanthus species are considered to have stronger drought tolerance than another potential energy crop, switchgrass.
Point 20&21: Lines 112-117: Please join this paragraph with previous. / Lines 113-114: Sentence is not clear.
Response 20&21: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 22&23: Line 119: Please explain how drought affected this species. / Line 120: As mentioned above, M. × giganteus is not tolerant to drought – not necessary sentence.
Response 22&23: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 24: Lines 125-131: This is for “Material and methods”.
Response 24: We consider that it is important to show which kind of evaluate methodology we used in the present study. Therefore, we decide to keep this part in “Introduction”.
Point 25: Line 155: Please write with uppercase letter word “list”.
Response 25: We revised this part of the description, please check in the manuscript.
Point 26: Lines 168-169: SPAD chlorophyll meter (SPAD-502Plus, Konica Minolta, Osaka, Japan) – you should write this in Line 165 when you first mention the SPAD. Also write what does the SPAD measure, relative content of chlorophyll or?
Response 26: We revised this part of the description and added more explanation for what does the SPAD measure, please check in the manuscript.
Point 27: Line 177: What is the difference in these two experiments except the dry-down period repeating?
Response 27: About these two experiments, the dry-down experiment in Hokkaido University and the dry-down experiment in Brigham Young University, the experimental design and method were almost same. The difference in these two experiments are the environment locations (Japan and USA) and some different Miscanthus genotypes. The propose was to compare if the evaluation result will be different at two locations.
Point 28: Line 178: Why not 23 Miscanthus genotypes?
Response 28: we are sorry that it was difficult to use the same 23 Miscanthus genotypes in BYU experiment because of the separate Miscanthus plants management. Therefore, we used 14 genotypes to carry out the experiment in BYU.
Point 29: Lines 194-199: Why these parameters were not measured in the first experiment? I suggest that the results from Table 4. be shown in the figure.
Response 29: The reason we did not use the portable photosynthesis system (LI-6400XT) to measure these photosynthesis parameters in the first experiment is that it would need too much to measure and it is difficult to carry out. For using LI-6400XT, it would take 5~10 minutes to measure one plant. Therefore, it would take around 11 hours to finish all measurement with total 138 pots in the first experiment. Considering to this reason, we choose to only use SPAD chlorophyll meter for measurement. And about Table 4, we consider that it is easier to show the results by Table style so we decide to keep Table 4.
Point 30: Lines 703-797: Please check all doi numbers carefully (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 15,
16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 are not active).
Also, references 29 and 37 have not doi please enter them.
Response 30: We revised the reference part, please check in the manuscript. About references 29 and 37, we are so sorry that we cannot find the doi.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript is well written and well presented. They have given a detailed methodology for reproducibility of results, the introduction covers relevant literature, results are well explained. Discussion is also up to the standard.
I have just one critical point.
The authors compared two methods and considered one better than another. I think the data is not enough to draw such a conclusion as presented by the authors in the abstract and conclusion.
I think further detail is required for this in the article (maybe some experimental data is also needed). They need to mention how the location and environmental factors contribute to the result and how these can become variable in other parts.
The authors mentioned the diploid cultivars have high tolerance than tetraploids. This needs further support from literature as different researchers presented different results. This will be good to provide some important detail to readers on this topic.
Author Response
Dear review editor,
Thank you for your precious suggestion. We revised the manuscript based on your advice. Your advice helps the manuscript be more easily understanding. We responded to your point one by one. Please check the following answers and the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Tzuya Weng
Point 1: The authors compared two methods and considered one better than another. I think the data is not enough to draw such a conclusion as presented by the authors in the abstract and conclusion.
I think further detail is required for this in the article (maybe some experimental data is also needed). They need to mention how the location and environmental factors contribute to the result and how these can become variable in other parts.
Response 1: In order to check that are the location and environmental factors contribute to the result, we use ANOVA to test the performance of Miscanthus genotypes in two experiments (Hokkaido and Utah) and there was no significant difference (p >0.05), suggesting that environmental conditions didn’t affect our result. (Table 2-1). Based on this result, evaluation method for drought tolerance of genotypes through dry-down treatment was reliable and also we considered that the fixed-soil-moisture-content techniques is more suitable for understanding the physiological responses of plants.
Point 2: The authors mentioned the diploid cultivars have high tolerance than tetraploids. This needs further support from literature as different researchers presented different results. This will be good to provide some important detail to readers on this topic.
Response 2: In our result, diploid Miscanthus cultivars showed higher tolerance than tetraploids Miscanthus. However, little information exists regarding how diploid or tetraploids Miscanthus genotypes contribute to stress-induced mechanism and we also consider that it is needed to be characterized in further studies.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors report a study on the ability of different Miscanthus genotypes to resist water stress. They carried out two experimental protocols in two laboratories with different Miscanthus genotypes and subjected the plants to water stress. They then evaluated which genotype is more resistant to drought based on some parameters such as photosynthetic yield and leaf size.
The manuscript is interesting; to the genus Miscanthus belong species with an important resistance to drought due to the environments in which they grow. Furthermore, given the potential applications in the bioenergy field, having plants that produce high quantities of biomass even with little water is more eco-sustainable.
However, some critical issues should be clarified:
1) In the title it is not necessary to report the uses of Miscanthus (“bioenergy crop”), if in the manuscript data on this are not reported. The title should be revised.
2) Experiments carried out in different laboratories should respect the same environmental conditions. The authors report that the experiments carried out in Japan are in the semi-open area of a greenhouse in the period of July-August. The experiments carried out in Utah are in a closed greenhouse in the period of October. Can these two environmental conditions affect the ability of plants to withstand drought?
2) It seems that the only physiological parameters measured are the photosynthetic yield and the extension of the leaf. Is it sufficient to establish the drought resistance of the different genotypes?
3) In this regard, I suggest this manuscript:
Reza Yousefi et al Germination and Seedling Growth Responses of Zygophyllum fabago, Salsola kali L. and Atriplex canescens to PEG-Induced Drought Stress. Environments 2020, 7, 107. doi: 10.3390/environments7120107
Author Response
Dear review editor,
Thank you for your precious suggestion. We revised the manuscript based on your advice. Your advice helps the manuscript be more easily understanding. We responded to your point one by one. Please check the following answers and the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Tzuya Weng
Point 1: In the title it is not necessary to report the uses of Miscanthus (“bioenergy crop”), if in the manuscript data on this are not reported. The title should be revised.
Response 1: We revised the title as the following:
Assessment of drought tolerance of Miscanthus genotypes through dry-down treatment and fixed-soil-moisture-content techniques
Point 2: Experiments carried out in different laboratories should respect the same environmental conditions. The authors report that the experiments carried out in Japan are in the semi-open area of a greenhouse in the period of July-August. The experiments carried out in Utah are in a closed greenhouse in the period of October. Can these two environmental conditions affect the ability of plants to withstand drought?
Response 2: The reason we carried out the experiment in Utah in a glass closed greenhouse was that the outside temperature was too cold for Miscanthus. The average temperature of October in Utah is around 5~18℃ while the best temperature for Miscanthus is around 25~28℃. Therefore, we carried out the experiment in glass greenhouse to make the environment become better for Miscanthus plants to grow. Moreover, we use ANOVA to compare the performance of Miscanthus genotypes between two experiments (Hokkaido and Utah) and there was no significant difference (p >0.05), suggesting that two environmental conditions didn’t affect our result. (Table 2-1).
Point 3: It seems that the only physiological parameters measured are the photosynthetic yield and the extension of the leaf. Is it sufficient to establish the drought resistance of the different genotypes?
Response 3: We consider that photosynthetic parameters are sufficient to establish the drought resistance of the different genotypes because photosynthetic parameters are considering as the effective measure of drought tolerance in plants. As we mentioned in the manuscript, it has been reported in the reference No. [5] that photosynthetic rate was positively correlated with other physiological parameters in drought, suggesting that the performance of photosynthetic parameters can be regarded as the physiological response of plants under drought condition.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript has improved considerably; the authors have finalized their paper following the indications suggested by the reviewers
I am very satisfied with the corrections and additions made by the authors.
In my opinion, the manuscript can now be published
