Pathogenicity, Mycotoxin Production, and Control of Potato Dry Rot Caused by Fusarium spp.: A Review
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript presents a comprehensive study of the Fusarium dry rot of potato process. The paper includes a little more than a hundred of relevant references about the pathogenicity of the fungus Fusarium spp. on potato, the production of mycotoxins and the alternatives for physical, chemical, and biological control of the fungus. The study has a good potential to understand the available alternatives for the control of Fusarium spp., food contamination and to decrease the negative effects on public health and agriculture. However, the manuscript presents some inconsistencies that should be corrected before being accepted for publication.
The title should refer to the fact that it is a review and not a research article. Please adapt it, for example as "Pathogenicity, Mycotoxin Production, Control of Potato Dry Rot Causing by Fusarium spp. A Review."
Please unify the location of the references in Tables 2 and 3, as it is complex to understand which mycotoxin each author or group of authors found, as well as to understand which Fusarium species is involved in the production of each mycotoxin. For example, in Table 3 it is not easily understood to which author the production of 4,15-DAS and DAS by F. sambucinum is attributed, nor what is reported by author 54 (El-Banna et al., 1984). Also, it is convenient to order the abbreviations at the bottom of the table according to the sequence as they appear in the table.
The word Fusarium in the term "Fusarium Dry Rot" is used throughout the paper alternately with italic type or without this format. Please unify.
It is suggested to replace the term "the pathogenicity of pathogen." with another expression without cacophony, for example "the pathogenicity of Fusarium" or "the pathogenicity of the fungus". Similarly, other expressions such as "The cottony white, or purple, or yellow, or pink, or brick spore" (line 144) should be revised to improve readability. For example, it could be expressed as "The cottony white, purple, yellow, pink, or brick color of spore".
Please replace "Dry rot of control" with "Dry rot control" (line 211).
Please verify that the hyphenation of the words is appropriate. For example, "MAS: mon- oacetoxyscirpenol" (Line 207-208) replace with "MAS: mono-acetoxyscirpenol".
Please replace "inorganic acid" (line 357-358) with "inorganic acids", to homogenize with the following expression: "...organic acid, inorganic salts, organic salts, essential oils".
Please adapt the use of special abbreviations so that they are defined the first time they are used; also, when they appear in the tables, so that they are properly understood without the need for the reader to refer to the text. For example, BEA, ENN, ZEA and FUS, FUM on lines 157-161. Also in Table 2, the mycotoxin ZEA is not defined.
Author Response
Dear Editors and Reviewers,
Thank you for your letter and comments for our manuscript entitled “Pathogenicity, Mycotoxin Production, Control of Potato Dry Rot Causing by Fusarium spp. A Review” (Manuscript ID: jof-2542181). These comments are very valuable in revising and improving our manuscript. We have carefully studied the comments and made the necessary revisions as required and the revised parts are marked in red in the manuscript. A point-by-point response to the reviewers’ comments are listed as below:
We would like to express our great appreciation to you and reviewers for comments on our manuscript. Looking forward to hearing from you.
Thank you and best regards.
Sincerely yours,
Prof. Dr. Huali Xue
Gansu Agricultural University
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Xue et al, detail a wide review of potato dry rot caused by Fusarium spp. With their review they have touched every aspect that I would think would be required and think they have achieved their goal in writing. In terms of the text there are a few places that need to have some information added or be clarified with what is being said. My only point of contention with this manuscript is with the figures. As they are I do not think Figures 1 and 3 add anything to the manuscript that the text does not already achieve. Currently they could be dropped with little to no consequence to the overall manuscript. Those figures need an overhaul for them to valued in the paper.
Other minor comments:
Line 42 give a more specific link to the USDA website to cite the statement.
Table 1 is not referenced in the actual text. I suggest including it after the first or second paragraph in section 2.1.
At first mention of mycotoxins there is no explanation of mycotoxin where described. While addressed in a figure it should also be made clear in the text i.e. Fumonisin (FUM)
After section 2.4, subsections involving methods dealing with dry rot in storage are labeled as 2.3.1, 2.3.2 etc. Please change numbers in accordance.
Line 241, you say “none of variety is resistant to all the Fusarium complex”. Do you mean to say Fusarium as a species? If not please specify which complex this is in reference to.
Formatting issue on page 10 after line 307. There is a large blank space present. Not sure if a figure or table was supposed to be included here.
While not overly distracting there are some places in the document that could be improved by some additional editing to improve the tone and clarity of the paper. I think having someone dedicated to improving the grammar and language edit this document once would be beneficial.
Here are some of the ones I noticed:
Line 36 change “huge” to “large”. Its awkward word choice. Does not match tone set by paper.
Line 61 see above comment about using “huge”.
Line 192 Interesting vs interested.
Line 283 sentence starting on this line needs to be broken up and reworded
Author Response
Dear Editors and Reviewers,
Thank you for your letter and comments for our manuscript entitled “Pathogenicity, Mycotoxin Production, Control of Potato Dry Rot Causing by Fusarium spp. A Review” (Manuscript ID: jof-2542181). These comments are very valuable in revising and improving our manuscript. We have carefully studied the comments and made the necessary revisions as required and the revised parts are marked in red in the manuscript. A point-by-point response to the reviewers’ comments are listed as below:
We would like to express our great appreciation to you and reviewers for comments on our manuscript. Looking forward to hearing from you.
Thank you and best regards.
Sincerely yours,
Prof. Dr. Huali Xue
Gansu Agricultural University
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
