Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In this manuscript, the authors evaluate biological alternatives for the management of Fusarium oxysporum and Rhizoctonia solani, with the intention of reducing dependence on chemical products. The evaluation of strains of P. aeruginosa F2 and P. fluorescens JY3 revealed an adequate amount in the production of siderophores, which contributed to the control of F. oxysporum and R. solani, in addition to favoring the development of wheat plants at home vegetation. Dear authors, I am very excited about this manuscript! My congratulations for the work. In order to contribute to the improvement of the manuscript, here are some suggestions for consideration.

The introduction is well-written and clearly presents the objective of the research. The material topic is methods is robust and the results are in line with the methodology. The discussion addresses the results properly and the references are updated. As a suggestion:

L7 9 - Inform the reader what a PGRB is.

L 221 – 224 – As this is relevant information, the authors could provide more information about the antagonistic effect. I think the description of these results was superficial.

L276 – 283 – Many phrases are included in the material and methods topic. There is no need to repeat the methodology. Recommend revision of the text.

L 286, 306, and 307 – Scientific names misspelled. Kindly correct.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This is an interesting manuscript that should be published in Agriculture/MDPI. Two Pseudomonas isolates that produce siderophores have been experimentally shown to have an antagonistic effect on two damping off causing fungi, Fusarium oxysporum and Rhizoctonia solani, in vitro. This has also been confirmed in a greenhouse experiment. In Discussion, the authors show that similar  phenomenon is already known for other strains of Pseudomonas, which produced siderophores. The obtained results are of great importance for the protection of plants against diseases caused by soil borne fungi. Before publishing, some corrections  need to be made throughout the manuscript.

​Line 23 CAS agar - needs explanation.

Line 29 ‘Cells of both bacterial isolates’ – it should be rather ‘Colonies of both bacterial isolates’.

Line 37 'energetic role' - what exactly do you mean?

Line 49-54 consider revising this two sentences because some of the content is repeated.

Line 81 can we use the term ‘flourish’ for fungi?

Line 88 ‘Fluorescent pseudomonads’ it should be ‘fluorescent pseudomonads’ and not italic. It’s a general name, not the name of genus and species.

Line 92 give some details for fungal and bacterial isolates eg. origin (soil ? plant species, isolations datum).

Line 100 CAS agar - requires explanation.

Line 106, beside references to the literature, the essential elements of the experiment and details of the quantitative data must be given.

Line 107 -108 Pseudomonas, Rhizoctonia, Fusarium - just P., R., F. (as has been used before). This should be followed throughout the manuscript.

Line 116 the text is unclear, eg. what is seed culture?

Line 126 the text is unclear 'cultures containing both strains'

Line 139 -144 consider revising the text.

Line 150 - must be continued - how is biomass measured?

Line 158 ‘Demain[31]’ add a space.

Line 176 the plural ‘inoculums’ is incorrect- rather use either singular form: an inoculum or plural - inocula.

Line 182 rather fungal inoculum instead of ‘fungal inoculums’, make changes also in the rest of the text.

Line 182 rather soil inoculation/infestation instead of ‘soil infection’.

Line 212 it should be 'P. aeruginosa F2 and P. fluorescens JY3’.

Line 222 'significant efficacy' would it be possible to express the growth reduction as a percentage?

Line 231 'specific growth rate, denoted as μ,' – it  should be explained in detail in Material and Methods, it's unclear.

Line 252 it should be L^-1.

Line 286 , line 306, line 307 Fusarium oxysporum – it should be in italic.

Line 291 - 'soil infected' is not optimal, infested? (in entire manuscript).

Line 324 R. solani – it should be in italic.

Line 351, line 358 , line 367 - bacteria names -in italic.

Line 360 ‘greater efficacy’ this sentence is not clear – greater compared to…

Line 368 Pyricularia oryzae – in italic.

Line 384, 385 it should be Pseudomonas in italic.

Line 411 Fluorescent Pseudomonas – this is not a proper name, so Fluorescent cannot be in italic and should be lowercase.

Literature – Latin proper names of fungi and bacteria should be written in italic.

Remarks listed above.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf