The Response of Grain Yield and Quality of Water-Saving and Drought-Resistant Rice to Irrigation Regimes
and Lijun Luo 1,2
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper presents research on the irrigation regime's impact on the rice yield's chemical properties with respect to water savings. The article is quite multidisciplinary, which is always welcomed.
A literature review is consistent; all relevant knowledge and experience are included. The methodology is well-defined.
Authors should enclose the map of the experiment location. Also, figures from the provided experimental measurements should be enclosed.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you very much for your positive evaluation and constructive comments on " The response of grain yield and quality of water-saving and drought-resistant rice to irrigation regimes". We have resolved all the problems and carefully revised the manuscript. The reviewer's specific comments are as follows:
- The paper presents research on the irrigation regime's impact on the rice yield's chemical properties with respect to water savings. The article is quite multidisciplinary, which is always welcomed.
Response: Thanks for your affirmation and support.
- A literature review is consistent; all relevant knowledge and experience are included. The methodology is well-defined.
Response: Thanks for your affirmation and support.
- Authors should enclose the map of the experiment location. Also, figures from the provided experimental measurements should be enclosed.
Response: We have added the experiment location “(30° 53′ N, 121° 23′ E)”. We have removed the redundant measurements in materials and methods.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors
I have reviewed the article. The experiment is well conducted. However, some corrections are essential for improving the manuscript quality. All the comments are provided in the attached file.
Regards
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you very much for your positive evaluation and constructive comments on " The response of grain yield and quality of water-saving and drought-resistant rice to irrigation regimes". We have resolved all the problems and carefully revised the manuscript. The reviewer's specific comments are as follows:
- water-saving and drought-resistant rice：I think both have same meaning. Please revised.
Response: Water-saving and drought-resistant rice is a new variety developed by Shanghai Agricultural Biological Gene Center. It refers to a new type of rice variety with both high yield and quality characteristics of rice and water-saving and drought-resistant characteristics of upland rice. Articles on water-saving and drought-resistant rice have been published in various journals.
- Systematic Abstract is missing. Please provide.
1)- Problem Statement
2)- Reason for selection of current strategy
3)- Novelty statement
4)- Quantitative data to support the result
5)-Conclusive conclusion
6)- Recommendations
Response: We have modified the summary according to your requirements “Rice is the greatest consumer of water among all crops. Irrigation plays an essential role in regu-lating rice yields and quality. Still, the effects of different irrigation regimes on grain yield and rice quality of water-saving and drought-resistant rice are unclear. The water-saving and drought-resistant rice ‘Hanyou 73’ and the high-yielding rice variety ‘Hyou 518’ were used as materials in this study. Three irrigation regimes, conventional flooding irrigation (CF), alternate wetting and moderate soil drying irrigation (AWD), and dry cultivation (D), were set up under field conditions. The effects and mechanisms of different irrigation regimes on grain yield and rice quality of the two varieties were studied. The results showed that 1. compared with CF and AWD, D significantly reduced the grain yield of two varieties, but significantly improved the water use efficiency. Compared with other irrigation regimes, the grain yield and water use efficiency of Hanyou 73 were improved synergistically under AWD treatment. 2. Compared with CF treatment, AWD and D (especially) treatments decreased perfect rice kernel, total starch content, amylose content, amylopectin content, amylose/amylopectin, gel consistency, and breakdown, but in-creased green rice kernel, chalky kernel, protein content, and setback. 3. Compared with CF, AWD and D reduced the activities of key enzymes (ADP-glucose pyrophosphorylase, soluble starch synthase, and starch branching enzyme) in sucrose-starch metabolism after heading, and D treatment decreased more. The activities of key enzymes in sucrose-starch metabolism were sig-nificantly positively correlated with perfect rice kernel, amylopectin content, gel consistency, and breakdown, but significantly negatively correlated with green rice kernel, chalky kernel, protein content, and setback. The results indicate that Hanyou 73 could obtain the synergistic improve-ment of grain yield, water use efficiency, and rice quality under AWD treatment. D treatment could significantly improve water use efficiency. Compared with Hyou518, Hanyou 73 could maintain higher the activities of key enzymes in sucrose-starch metabolism, head milled rice, perfect rice kernel, amylopectin content, and gel consistency under AWD and D treatment.”.
- Please provide a statement showing the knowledge gap covered in current study in context of literature. Hypothesis statement.
Response: We have added “Irrigation plays an essential role in regulating rice yields and quality. Still, the ef-fects of different irrigation regimes on grain yield and rice quality of water-saving and drought-resistant rice are unclear. We speculated that water-saving and drought-resistant rice could obtain a synergistic improvement of grain yield, water use efficiency, and rice quality under AWD treatment. ”.
- Give GPS location
Response: We have added the experiment location “(30° 53′ N, 121° 23′ E)”.
- I am sure it has some error. Please check again. Ammonical form is highly unstable form.
Response: After our check, ammonia nitrogen was 20.2 mg kg−1.
- Its too much high. Soil is highly fertile.
Response: available phosphorus was 40.6 mg kg−1.
- Pre-exprimental soil data showed that, sufficient K and P is present. Why then author has applied high rates of fertilizers.
Response: Sufficient K and P are applied to obtain sufficient nutrients for crops to achieve high yields.
- How? Give details
Response: We have added “Diseases, insects, and weeds were controlled by either chemical or manual methods to avoid yield loss. ”.
- Not style of journal
Response: We have revised “Hoshikawa (1993). [25], ”to “Hoshikawa. [25], ”.
- only software information is provided. No details of statistical analysis is provided. e.g. ANOVA, comparison test
Response: We have added “The statistical model used included sources of variation due to replication, year, variety, irrigation regime, and the interaction of year × variety, year × irrigation regime, variety × irrigation regime, and year × variety × irrigation regime (model = year, variety, irri-gation regime, year × variety, year × irrigation regime, variety × irrigation regime, and year × variety × irrigation regime). Data from each sampling date were analyzed sep-arately. Means were tested by least significant difference at P < 0.05 (LSD0.05).”.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript title “The response of grain yield and quality of water-saving and drought-resistant rice to irrigation regimes” is well written and have scientific value. The authors performed a detailed study on two rice cultivar and evaluated their grain yield and quality under different irrigation regimes.
My decision is accept after minor revision. My minor suggestions for authors are as follows:
Reviewer Comments:
1- The figure 1 seems to be too small and the content written in the figure 1 is hard to read, I suggest author to provide a bigger version of figure 1. Same with figure 2.
2- Secondly, please add few lines on future research direction based on your current results.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you very much for your positive evaluation and constructive comments on " The response of grain yield and quality of water-saving and drought-resistant rice to irrigation regimes". We have resolved all the problems and carefully revised the manuscript. The reviewer's specific comments are as follows:
- The figure 1 seems to be too small and the content written in the figure 1 is hard to read, I suggest author to provide a bigger version of figure 1. Same with figure 2.
Response: We have provided bigger versions of figures 1 and 2.
- Secondly, please add few lines on future research direction based on your current results.
Response: We have added “In the future, it is necessary to study the physiological mechanism of starch structure on the quality of water-saving and drought-resistant rice under different irrigation methods.”.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors,
I am pleased to see that you have taken my suggestions into consideration and incorporated them into your paper. However, I believe that there are still some fine English corrections that need to be made. Please make these corrections and resubmit the paper for review.
Sincerely,
Author Response
Thank you for your suggestion. We have conducted a comprehensive English examination of the article.Author Response File: Author Response.docx
