Review Reports - Influence of Biocontrol and Integrated Strategies and Treatment Timing on Plum Brown Rot Incidence and Fungicide Residues in Fruits

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

Your work still needs some corrections as follows:

1) Line 11 - Please, correct the name of Bacillus subtilis

2) Line 13 - It will be better to replace this "Biological 1 (BIO1), BIO2, Integrated 1 (INT1), INT2, INT3, and Combined (COMB)" with "Biological (BIO1, BIO2), Integrated (INT1, INT2, INT3), and Combined (COMB)"

3) Lines 30, 32, 33 - What do you mean with "Honey" here?

4) Line 134 - FENEX or FENX?

5) Line 225 - "four replicates (plots) per treatment each consisting of 75 plants"

Line 273 - "four replicates (plots) of 50 plum trees were used"

Which one is correct - 50 or 75?

6) Lines 287-288 - Please, place "-1" as supersript

7) Line 348 - Please, use "." instead of "," in the following "452,5 and 92,5 μg/kg for BOSC"

8) Line 382 - Why you have separated the figures and tables in a subsection and not placed them into the text?

9) Lines 387-388, 402-403 - Please, place the Latin names in italic

10) Line 438 - Plum not plumb

11) It will be better to add a Conclusion section with your main findings and possibilities for practical application

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,
below I report point by point answers.

1) Line 11 - Please, correct the name of Bacillus subtilis

DONE

3) Lines 30, 32, 33 - What do you mean with "Honey" here?

The name of the author / researcher who identified the fungal pathogen

4) Line 134 - FENEX or FENX?

DONE

5) Line 225 - "four replicates (plots) per treatment each consisting of 75 plants"

THE NUMBER OF PLANTS PER PLOT WERE 75. WHILE THOSE USED FOR TAKING WERE THE CENTRAL PLOTS OF THE PLOT (50), TO ELIMINATE THE EDGE EFFECT

Line 273 - "four replicates (plots) of 50 plum trees were used"

Which one is correct - 50 or 75?

THE NUMBER OF PLANTS PER PLOT WERE 75. WHILE THOSE USED FOR TAKING WERE THE CENTRAL PLOTS OF THE PLOT (50), TO ELIMINATE THE EDGE EFFECT

6) Lines 287-288 - Please, place "-1" as supersript

DONE

7) Line 348 - Please, use "." instead of "," in the following "452,5 and 92,5 μg/kg for BOSC"

DONE

8) Line 382 - Why you have separated the figures and tables in a subsection and not placed them into the text?

We followed the suggestion reported in the MDPI template, inserting the figures and tables in section 3 after the results and before discussion and conclusions.

9) Lines 387-388, 402-403 - Please, place the Latin names in italic

DONE

10) Line 438 - Plum not plumb

DONE

11) It will be better to add a Conclusion section with your main findings and possibilities for practical application

DONE

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Brown rot (Monilinia spp.) in stone fruits has been reported to be controlled by targeted application of the biocontrol agents (BCAs) Papiliotrema terrestris or Bacillus subtils, alone or in combination with synthetic fungicides. This information was reported in the manuscript written by authors Palmieri D et al., entitled "Influence of biocontrol and integrated strategies and treatment timing on plum brown rot incidence and fungicide residues in fruits. The article discussed five important treatments that were carried out during the critical phenological phases of the disease cycle, i.e., from the start of the growing season to fruit harvest. The outcomes showed that the management techniques BIO2 and INT3 provided the highest level of disease protection in the field and after harvest. In the BIO and INT techniques, the amount of fungicide residues in the fruit was Zero.

Minor remarks include:

English editing is needed for the entire paper, and the Results and Discussion sections' language might need some improvement.

Author Response

English editing is needed for the entire paper, and the Results and Discussion sections' language might need some improvement.

done

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Corresponding Author

I checked your paper. You work on an important fungal disease of fruit trees that has destructive impacts throughout the world. Your management strategy (IDM) is good. I have some suggestions to improve your paper:

1) As I understand well, you just evaluate disease incidence in trees. I think it is better you add disease severity data into your paper. Because we have 2 important factors in plant diseases. You just evaluate one of them.

2) Instead of LSD comparison test you have use HSD-Tukey’s test of your statistical program to compare all of treatments with each other.

3) In Figures 3 and 4 you have to add HSD-Tukey’s results.

4) Instead of Figure 5 you have to add more photos of under-studied orchard as before and after of your compounds usage (especially fruit samples that they receive several different treatments).

5) Please remove Table 2 and add a well-organized phylogenetic tree.

6) Please describe your results more (in brief) in the abstract.

7) Please check the English of the paper with a native person.

With Best Regards

Reviewer

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,
below I report point by point answers.

Considering the type of disease, the speed with which it invades the fruit, we considered the data on the % of infected fruit to be valid.

2) Instead of LSD comparison test you have use HSD-Tukey’s test of your statistical program to compare all of treatments with each other.

Agree

3) In Figures 3 and 4 you have to add HSD-Tukey’s results.

We agree, thanks for the suggestion that allowed us to correct a mistake in the caption. We used the LSD Test for the comparisons marked with an asterisk, while the multiple comparison marked with the letters were performed using Tukey's test. Lines 277 and 413-416

4) Instead of Figure 5 you have to add more photos of under-studied orchard as before and after of your compounds usage (especially fruit samples that they receive several different treatments).

I'm sorry, but Figure 5 plays a key role in this manuscript. it is very important as it highlights the distribution level of the infection initiation centers (from natural openings and / or craking wounds)

5) Please remove Table 2 and add a well-organized phylogenetic tree.

It will be the subject of another manuscript

6) Please describe your results more (in brief) in the abstract.

The number of words is equal to what is required by the journal

7) Please check the English of the paper with a native person.

DONE

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Corresponding Author

Based on my previous comments:

You have to describe your results more in the abstract. It does not mean the number of words. It means scientific extending description.

You have to add Tukey's results on Figures 3 and 4.

You have to add phylogenetic tree.

Regards

Author Response

Point- by-point response

Quentsion: You have to describe your results more in the abstract. It does not mean the number of words. It means scientific extending description.

Answer:

done. We have added the data on disease degree protecion in the abstract

Question: You have to add Tukey's results on Figures 3 and 4.

Answer:

Representing the statistical analysis in graphs 3 greatly increase their complexity and make them difficult to interpret. We compared each treatment to FFD and FLD controls for the two years of experimentation and the results of the statistical analysis will be provided in a table as supplementary materials. For the pairwise comparisons we used the Uncorrected Fisher's LSD comparison test (p <0.05). While, for graph 4 we report the statistical analysis in the new figure.

You have to add phylogenetic tree.

Our manuscript proposes an efficacy study comparing different protocol to control PBR, not a taxonomy study. Our aim was simply reporting a correct taxonomy identification of the fungal isolates from the symptomatic fruits. we still do not understand the usefulness of a phylogenetic tree in our manuscript.

Moreover, a phylogenetic tree on the same species?