Trifoliate Orange-Related Rootstocks Enhance the Horticultural Performance of ‘Shamouti’ Sweet Orange under Humid Subtropical Condition
, Rui Pereira Leite Junior 1, Inês Fumiko Ubukata Yada 4 and Zuleide Hissano Tazima 5Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Interesting experience, very reliable due to the length of the observation. A correctly assumed and comprehensively described experience. Some data regarding the description of rootstocks, their belonging and the Laćin name do not need to be repeated. The remaining minor remarks requiring corrections are indicated in the text of the publication
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
First of all, we thanks all the Reviewers for the significative contribution in our manuscript, the revised file contains all the changes suggested by them.Reviewer 2 Report
I have thoroughly reviewed the manuscript; the study is very useful and based on long-term field observations. However, there is some flaw that needs to be adequately addressed in order to improve the quality of the presentation of MS. There is a lack of coherence in the obtained results and inferences drawn by the authors, besides some minor errors are noticed. The specific, as well as general comments on the review, are reported hereunder:
L 18-20: How a shortage of scions and rootstocks can increase vulnerability to diseases and abiotic stresses? It’s a vogue statement! Please revise it.
Authors highlighted the issue of stress caused damage to orchards but without touching those aspects, they conclude only based on vigor and yield (L 34-36). Line 66-68 can be a better opening statement for the abstract prefixed with the importance of citrus in Brazil, in a precise way.
L 20: Frost is highlighted as one of the issues but weather parameters presented in the MS shows that the lowest temperature never dropped below 10 degree Celsius at least from 2009 to 2015. So, how you can generalize by relating with frost?
L 29-30: Cleopatra’ mandarin, ‘Sunki’ mandarin, and ‘Rangpur’ lime displayed higher vigor, showing slow-growth progress and low tree density: contradictory statement, and these for which growth parameters? So, support this statement with facts.
L 75: make instead of makes
L 90: susceptible instead of susceptibility
L 113: planted in
L 227-230: Swingle and C-13 grew faster in canopy growth during the initial stage, but in later years they were slow, why?
L 237-238: It would be better to provide ±SD for each value presented in tables for a better understanding to the reader of a possible range.
L 382-383: …these findings are consistent with those reported by Hodgson [45] and Albrigo et al. [13], as they described ‘Shamouti´ as very vigorous with upright growth: Whether describing the performance of scion per se or any particular rootstocks, it is not clear. So, explain which rootstocks. And, how these findings are consistent with Swingle or C-13 rootstocks grafted tree, which present dwarfness?
L 423: use elaborated form (‘also known as’) in formal writing instead of using a.k.a.
L 434: use combination instead of pairing, in whole MS; and replace showed by show.
L 445: Please check the year after planting of tree (i.e., 2005)!
L 452-460: Grafting on Cleopatra rootstock with regard to scion vigor and yield is very confusing. Is this 12-year age still early to yield at full especially when the tree attains commercial yield in 5-6 years as also stated by you: this creates redundancy in the statements related to this in the whole paragraph.
Additional general comments:
- The trunk diameters (RTD) are not showing significant differencse among the rootstocks over the fifteen years of plantation, and they (rootstocks) are different in nature. But in case of STD, there is a significant difference among the STD while scion is the same. How it can happen, clarify this.
- What is the acceptable level of compatibility index? please mention in the MS based on previous works. Accordingly, relate your results and discuss with proper justification as what you recommend for these graft combinations is other way around: C-13 and Swingle rootstocks provided low vigor and more yield of the scion, but have a very low compatibility index. In general, the basic principle of stionic studies, when the compatibility index is poor then the scion produces poor growth and yield traits. Therefore, under this condition, I would like to know the reason of better performance at all plant canopy, fruit yield and quality parameters that is interesting to know!
- Is it not due to some incompatibility as you state that in the early period their rootstocks showed vigorous growth but in later years produced slow growth and less canopy of scion.
- Overall, based on 12 years' results, how can be these rootstocks recommended for commercial plantation? Please draw inferences carefully in order to avoid committing any wrong recommendation that may affect commercial viability, unless it is supported by strong and clearcut pieces of evidence.
Regards
Author Response
First of all, we thanks all the Reviewers for the significative contribution in our manuscript, the revised file contains all the changes suggested by them. Here below are the answers for the queries stated by the Reviewer 2:L 18-20: How a shortage of scions and rootstocks can increase vulnerability to diseases and abiotic stresses? It’s a vogue statement! Please revise it.
Authors highlighted the issue of stress caused damage to orchards but without touching those aspects, they conclude only based on vigor and yield (L 34-36). Line 66-68 can be a better opening statement for the abstract prefixed with the importance of citrus in Brazil, in a precise way.
Answer: Thanks for the suggestion, the initial statement of the abstract was vague, we exclude this part as this statement does not add any relevante information for the MS.
L 20: Frost is highlighted as one of the issues but weather parameters presented in the MS shows that the lowest temperature never dropped below 10 degree Celsius at least from 2009 to 2015. So, how you can generalize by relating with frost?
Answer: After review your comments, we decide to take it out as we did not evaluated the effect of drought or freeze on tree performance. The values of temperature was based on the average of each month.
L 29-30: Cleopatra’ mandarin, ‘Sunki’ mandarin, and ‘Rangpur’ lime displayed higher vigor, showing slow-growth progress and low tree density: contradictory statement, and these for which growth parameters? So, support this statement with facts.
Answer: We revised to: Trees on ‘Cleopatra’, ‘Sunki’, and ‘Rangpur’ were the most vigorous among the tested rootstocks but took longer to establish in the field, evidenced by their growth progress. These combinations also displayed the lowest tree density estimation.
L 75: make instead of makes
Answer: We changed it.
L 90: susceptible instead of susceptibility
Answer: We changed it.
L 113: planted in
Answer: We changed it.
L 227-230: Swingle and C-13 grew faster in canopy growth during the initial stage, but in later years they were slow, why?
Answer: Well, trees on these rootstocks had slow canopy growth in the later years of our study because they were spending most of their energy saving (phosynthates) to fruit production instead of tree growth (growth cease).
L 237-238: It would be better to provide ±SD for each value presented in tables for a better understanding to the reader of a possible range.
Answer: The SD values were provided.
L 382-383: …these findings are consistent with those reported by Hodgson [45] and Albrigo et al. [13], as they described ‘Shamouti´ as very vigorous with upright growth: Whether describing the performance of scion per se or any particular rootstocks, it is not clear. So, explain which rootstocks. And, how these findings are consistent with Swingle or C-13 rootstocks grafted tree, which present dwarfness?
Answer: Furthermore, Hodgson [45] and Albrigo et al. [13] described ‘Shamouti´ as very vigorous with upright growth, however, it may show a decrease in tree size when grafted on some rootstocks as ‘Swingle’. None of the studied rootstock induce dwarfness to the scion, only intermediate size.
L 423: use elaborated form (‘also known as’) in formal writing instead of using a.k.a.
Answer: We changed it.
L 434: use combination instead of pairing, in whole MS; and replace showed by show.
Answer: We changed it.
L 445: Please check the year after planting of tree (i.e., 2005)!
Answer: We changed it.
L 452-460: Grafting on Cleopatra rootstock with regard to scion vigor and yield is very confusing. Is this 12-year age still early to yield at full especially when the tree attains commercial yield in 5-6 years as also stated by you: this creates redundancy in the statements related to this in the whole paragraph.
Answer: This sentence was revised to: Trees on this rootstock produce reduced number of fruits in the early years of bearing, typical of its slow growth tendency in the early stages of tree development (Figure 2).
Additional general comments:
- The trunk diameters (RTD) are not showing significant differences among the rootstocks over the fifteen years of plantation, and they (rootstocks) are different in nature. But in case of STD, there is a significant difference among the STD while scion is the same. How it can happen, clarify this.
Answer: All tested scion-rootstock combinations had similar rootstock trunk diameter (RTD) because they were at the same age, however, differences were found among the scion trunk diameters. It may be related to the trifoliate orange crossing rootstocks, as they induce lower growth tendency to the canopy and have an overgrowth at the basis of the trunk. The differences between these diameters resulted in low trunk diameter index, mainly because of the morpho-anatomical aspect of the scion-rootstock combinations.
- What is the acceptable level of compatibility index? please mention in the MS based on previous works. Accordingly, relate your results and discuss with proper justification as what you recommend for these graft combinations is other way around: C-13 and Swingle rootstocks provided low vigor and more yield of the scion, but have a very low compatibility index. In general, the basic principle of stionic studies, when the compatibility index is poor then the scion produces poor growth and yield traits. Therefore, under this condition, I would like to know the reason of better performance at all plant canopy, fruit yield and quality parameters that is interesting to know!
Answer: Several authors state that the optimal compatibility index is 1.0, as the rootstock and scion show the same growth pattern. However, this concept should be revised as the scion-rootstock combinations involving trifoliate orange related rootstocks exhibit sharp differences between the rootstock and scion trunk sections, resulting in low ratio (trunk diameter index) or compatibility index. Therefore, the compatibility between the materials (scion and rootstock) must take in account the overall horticultural performance of the combination and not only based on the diferences in trunk diameters.
- Is it not due to some incompatibility as you state that in the early period their rootstocks showed vigorous growth but in later years produced slow growth and less canopy of scion. Answer: No, because the trees grafted on these rootstocks were health and no incompatibility symptoms were observed on trees and at the graft union. We opened a window (5 cm x 10 cm) at this area to make sure if no browning, gumming, or abnormalities of plant cells was evident.- Overall, based on 12 years' results, how can be these rootstocks recommended for commercial plantation? Please draw inferences carefully in order to avoid committing any wrong recommendation that may affect commercial viability, unless it is supported by strong and clearcut pieces of evidence. Answer, we did the recommendation based on the horticultural performance of the trees in the field in the last paragraph and conclusion section. Thanks again for all the efforts to improve our MS!
Reviewer 3 Report
Remove the essay design sentence in the abstract section.
Include more numerical data than the study results in the abstracsection.
In the introduction part, give an example of rootstock studies in other horticultural plants with a few sentences.
In the last sentence of the introduction, write the purpose of the study more clearly.
Add the standard deviation values of the data used in the tables.
A correlation table should be created between the examined parameters and discussed accordingly.
Author Response
First of all, we thank all the Reviewers for the significative contribution in our manuscript, the revised file contains all the changes suggested by them. Here below are the answer for the queries argued: Remove the essay design sentence in the abstract section. Answer: We removed it.Include more numerical data than the study results in the abstract section. Answer: We included more data in the abstract section.
In the introduction part, give an example of rootstock studies in other horticultural plants with a few sentences. Answer: We gave some example including some woody fruits.
In the last sentence of the introduction, write the purpose of the study more clearly. Answer: We changed it.
Add the standard deviation values of the data used in the tables. Answer: The standard deviation was included in the tables.
A correlation table should be created between the examined parameters and discussed accordingly. Answer: the principal component analysis was created through the correlation between the studied parameters and discussed in the MS.
Thanks again for all the efforts that significantly improved our ms!
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript has been revised as per the comments/ suggestions made in the review.
It was suggested in the 1st review that 'Line 66-68 can be a better opening statement for the abstract prefixed with the importance of citrus in Brazil, in a precise way'
However, the authors have simply copied and pasted and this statement remained kept there, hence, duplicated. So, please revise this statement in an appropriate manner either in the abstract or in the introduction.
I noticed some errors in reference settings e.g., the year before the title of the paper; bold in the book chapter, italics, and so on. I believe these must be taken care of before publication, in proofreading.
Rest is ok.
Regards
Author Response
Dear Reviewer, Thanks for all the suggestion, we really appreciate it. We have changed the open statement of our abstract to: 'The narrow genetic pool for both scions and rootstocks used in the Brazilian orchards turns the citrus industry vulnerable to biotic and abiotic threats. Orchard diversification by using different scion–rootstock combinations is an efficient measure to promote citrus protection, through increasing the level of genetic diversity.' We believe this statement is more appropriate to the propose of our study. Additionally, the referee section was revised. Best, Deived CarvalhoReviewer 3 Report
The author made the necessary corrections.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We really appreciate your suggestions, thank you so much!
Best,
Deived Carvalho
