Evaluating the Efficacy of the Fermentation Formula of Bacillus velezensis Strain Tcb43 in Controlling Cucumber Powdery Mildew

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors submitted a manuscript titled “Formulation of the Bacillus velezensis strain Tcb43 for controlling powdery mildew disease on cucumber plants” for being considered of publication in the Journal of Agriculture. The authors presented their case well both in the importance of the disease to the economic crops and the importance of developing a biocontrol agent. They then described in detail about their approach to achieve their goals. They did garner several significant results that support their vision of using Tcb43 as a biocontrol agent to control powdery mildew disease on cucumbers in a large-scale greenhouse setting. This reviewer recommended “accept” only after satisfactory major revision (see below).

Line Comments and Suggestions

9 Insert “during” in between “harvesting” and “period”

13 Delete the 2nd “the”

15 Change the 1st “in” to “to”

16 Change “developed,………….which” to “developed (Tcb43FBSO) by adding 0.25%

soybean oil to the fermented formula (Tcb43FB), the new formula”

17 Change “, and” to “with”

19 Insert “of” in between “(100X)” and “Tcb43FBSO”

20 Change “trails” to “trials”

21 Insert “of” in between “(200X)” and “Tcb43FBSO”

21 Change “was……………disease” to “the powdery mildew disease was suppressed

significantly”

22 Delete “was”; Change “with” to “to”

22-24 Rewrite the sentence as follows “This work demonstrated that Tcb43 can be a

potential biocontrol agent.”

33 Change “harm” to “suffer”

59 Insert “in” in between “applied” and “greenhouse”

65 Change “reduce” to “reduced”

83 Delete one of the “cucumber wilt”

95 Change “stable” to “stability”

105 Delete “in general”

107 Delete “and”

108 Delete “it”

114 Change “following…protocol” to “as described.”

115 Delete “As………..measured,”; Change “gel” to “Gel”

118 Change “assemble” to “assembled”

119 Delete “used”; Insert “was used” in between “)” and “as”

152 Change “formulated” to “applied”

157 Change “shaking” to “constant shake”

164 Change “incubating” to “incubation”

165 Insert “when” in between “and” and “the”

167 Change “can be” to “was”

173 Change “,” to “.”; Change “and the” to “The”

174 Insert “Tcb43 was” in between “and” and “cultured”

175 Change “shaking culture” to “with constant shake at 120rpm (add shaker brand) ”

178 Delete “The”

180 Insert “effect of” in between “the” and “vegetable”;  Change “were affected the”

to “on”; Insert “was cultured in” in between “Tcb43” and “fermentation”

181-182 Change “to……..plating” to “and after cultivation Tcb43 cell counts were carried 

out by dilution plating”

187 Change “mixed” to “mix“

188 Insert “being” in between “after” and “kept”; Delete “, and……..out”

189 Add “were counted” after “plate”

192 Delete “simultaneous”; Change “in” to “for”

192-193 Rewrite “And………….group” as follow “The Tcb43 population was counted every 

24 hrs for 3 days, whereas Tcb43 cultured in LB was counted and used as controls.”

195 Delete “Comparing”; Change “the” to “The”

200 Delete “taken out”

201 Insert “were taken” in between “broths” and “every”; Insert “for a total of 6

times” in between “months” and “,”; Insert “were” in between “and” and “boiled”; Delete “it”; Change “to calculate” to “before the”

202 Change “amounts” to “numbers”; Add “were counted.” after “broths”; Delete

“and……..months.”

206 Delete “were”

210 Change “and” to “before being”

215 Change “spraying” to “spray”

216 Insert “the same” in between “and” and “treatments”

216-217 Delete “To investigate and record”

217 Change “the” to “The”; Change “plant” to “plants”

218 Change “weekly….spraying” to “wes investigated and recorded weekly before 

each spray”

223-224 Delete “And……calculating”; Change “the” to “The”

224 Insert “was calculated using the following formula” in between “rate” and “(%)”

229 Insert “a” in between “in” and “large”

231 Change “trail” to “trial”; Delete “randomly”; Change “,” to “.”; Change “there” to 

“There”

232 Change “for” to “of”; Insert “each” in between “repetitions” and “,”

232-233 Change “an opportunistic” to “a random”

234 Change “after planting” to “Once”

235 Delete “and then started”; Change “spraying” to “spray began”

238 Change “The” to “200 ml of the”

238-239 Change “spraying for 200 ml in each plants” to “sprayed onto each plant”

242 Change “above described” to “described above”

261 Change “the one of the” to “that of”

262-263 Change “has a similarity of 97.89% to the” to “similar to”

263 Insert “with 97.89% similarity” In between “….21” and “)”; Delete “the”

279 Change “of the” to “for”

280 Insert “Tcb43 reached the highest population at 6.65 x 108 cfu/ml” in between 

“,” and “when”

283-284 Delete “to calculate………cfu/ml”

285 Insert “the” in between “in” and “following”

291-302 If it took 3 days for Tcb43 to reach the highest population, then this result based 

on one day cultivation could not be used for comparison. Explain why one day cultivation was used. 

297-302 Delete Figure 2, simply list the cfu/ml in each medium and state that there is no

significant difference among them.

303-317 After 3-day cultivation, Tcb43 grew significantly higher yield in medium FB alone 

and mediums supplemented with 0.25%, 0.5%, or 1.0% soybean oil as compared to that in LB alone. However, there was no significant difference among the four media, therefore FB supplemented with 0.25% soybean oil used for subsequent fermentation formula was not because of higher yield but because of cost-saving purpose. Explain why and rewrite the whole content of 3.3.3.

353 Fig. 5 (B) was missing

388 Change “in 2022, 2022, and 2023” to “in June 2022, December 2022, and March

2023”

389 Insert “trials” in between “greenhouse” and “,”

390 Change “the” to “that at”

401 Change “causes infections” to “exhibited symptoms”

408 Change “not much” to “limited”; Insert “control” in between “to” and “powdery”

414 Insert “fungus” in between “mildew” and “.”

415 Insert “of Tcb43 which was used as a bioagent and applied” in between “activity”

and “to”

416 Delete “for bioagent application”

418 Change “revealed” to “found”

423 Insert “,” after “salinity”

423-424 Delete “in………test”

424 Change “could increase” to “demonstrated”

424-425 “potential” to “potentiality of Tcb43 being used as a bioagent”

435 Insert “as” in between “were” and “predicted”

436 Delete “and was detected”

440-443 Rewrite “Based on…………………..broth” as follow: “Even though our results

indicated there was no significant difference in Tcb43 growing in Tcb43FB or Tcb43FBSO broths, yet Tcb43FBSO broth did lengthen the shelf life, provided better antagonistic ability, and gave effective disease control.” 

455-459 Rewrite “However,………future” as follow: “However, whether Tcb43 performs

other functions such as inducing systemic resistance in plant, competition for nutrients and space with pathogen, having plant growth promoting activity or producing other antagonistic substances [24, 38, 39] warrant further investigation.”

471 Insert “is warranted” in between “disease” and “.”   

This reviewer suggested that the authors should ask native English-speaking person(s) or a certified translation agency to edit the revised version before resubmitting.  

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The title should improve to reflect on your work

Keyword should be different than in title

The introduction is long and you should only focus on your work you wrote many thing about the methods of control you need to focused on your work

What the source of the pathogen, How you identified it 

From where you isolate the bioagent and according to what you chose one isolate?

How many replicate you used

All Figs need to improve and the legend should be explain everything in the fig 

English language need to improve

The refrences is too old

Discussion part need to improve here some new references maybe you can used for improve your discussion. If found useful, cite these recent references

https:/doi.org/10.1128/spectrum.05084-22

https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae8121143

https://doi.org/10.1080/19315260.2021.1935388

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15175-1_1

Moderate editing of English language required

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

After reviewing the revised manuscript, this reviewer recommended "Accept" in current form after the following three suggested changes:

Line 26: Add "of" before "cucumber" and delete "by 64.6%" at the end

Line 29: Change "was reached to 76.6%" to "reached 76.6%"

Line 317: Change "into" to "onto"

English in the revised manuscript was in good quality.

Reviewer 2 Report

it could be accept now 

Minor editing of English language required