Microbial Consortia Versus Single-Strain Inoculants as Drought Stress Protectants in Potato Affected by the Form of N Supply

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

After reading this manuscript, I suggest that the authors improve the discussion on antioxidants. Additionally, the authors could provide a better rationale for the selection of the antioxidants  that was analyzed, considering that there are many other antioxidants that could also be evaluated.

Author Response

Reviewer 1

Comment:  „After reading this manuscript, I suggest that the authors improve the discussion on antioxidants. Additionally, the authors could provide a better rationale for the selection of the antioxidants  that was analyzed, considering that there are many other antioxidants that could also be evaluated.“

The adited version of the manuscript is attached below (author coverletter 3413644v1.docx

 

Response:

Thanks for this helpful comment. Of course higher plants use various strategies and a wide range of antioxidants for oxidative stress defence. For the analysis, we tried to make a selection with documented relevance for drought stress conditions. In the revised version we addressed this aspect more clearly also with respective references in the introduction of the methods (section 2.1.10) and also in the discussion (section 4.4 and 4.6):                                              

“Proline and glycine betaine were determined as metabolites with important functions in osmotic adjustment, ROS detoxification, and stress signaling (Rajasheker et al., 2019; Álvarez-Méndez et. al., 2022.)- The 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl radical (DPPH) method was used to evaluate the free radical scavenging activity of antioxidants in the plant tissue (Moradtalab et al., 2020) as a proxy for non-enzymatic ROS detoxification. Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) levels, representing an important ROS pool, were determined spectrophotometrically at 390 nm as described by Moradtalab, (2018). The activity of ascorbate peroxidase (APX) with key functions in H2O2 detoxification (Caverzan et al., 2012)  was recorded according to the spectrophotometric method described by Boominathan and Doran (2002)”

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Abdullah Al Mamun et al. described the effects of PGPMs inoculation on potato in drought condition. The results showed that there exist promoted effects of inoculants to potato in drought condition.

Major revision:

1.     In table 1, the plant growth of NC, AM and FZB was similar, but in Fig 4 there was significant difference among those three treatments. It seems the inoculants can increase the drought resistance of potato but can not increase yield. How to explain this contradiction.

2.     Why there has no AM+FZB treatment in table 1? From Fig 3, authors compared NC with AM+FZB.

Minor revision:

1.     Format of Table 5 need be rearranges, “nutrients” is not well correspond to data. It is hard to read.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

No more suggestion.

Author Response

 Comment 1:

“In table 1, the plant growth of NC, AM and FZB was similar, but in Fig 4 there was significant difference among those three treatments. It seems the inoculants can increase the drought resistance of potato but can not increase yield. How to explain this contradiction.”

Response:

Table 1 and Figure 4 cannot be compared directly since they belong to different experiments supplied with different forms of N fertilization. However, the observation is correct that drought-protective effects of the inoculants at the physiological level reflected by reduced oxidative leaf damage in both experiments (and related to biochemical changes shown in Fig. 4) do not necessarily translate into yield benefits. In the discussion (section 4.6) we tried to explain this contradiction as follows: “This metabolic pattern (Fig. 4) suggests a particularly efficient ROS detoxification as previously reported e.g. for other Bacillus-based PGPR inoculants (Gururani et al., 2012; Batool et al., 2020), promoting vegetative growth and counteracting stress-induced leaf senescence (Santoyo et al., 2021). The delayed leaf senescence and stimulation of vegetative growth may also explain the shift of resource allocation favoring shoot biomass production at the expense of tuber growth in these treatments (Table 4).”

Comment 2:” Why there has no AM+FZB treatment in table 1? From Fig 3, authors compared NC with AM+FZB”.

Response:

Also, Table 1 and Figure 3 belong to different experiments. Table 1 shows the results of the initial screening experiment with all available strains. By contrast, Fig. 3 belongs to experiment 2 conducted with selected strains and strain combinations.

 

Comment 3: “Format of Table 5 need be rearranges, “nutrients” is not well correspond to data. It is hard to read“.

Response:

Sorry, this was obviously a formatting error duringthe  conversion of the originally submitted MS-Word document to the journal template. This applied similarly to Table 3. In the revised version, we have resubmitted the correctly formatted tables 3 and 5 (see attached file)

Comment:  „Minor editing of English language required“

In the revised version, we addressed this aspect by a complete revision of the manuscript using the professional language editing software (Grammarly). 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The topic of the manuscript fits the profile of the journal "Horticulturae".

The authors investigated the drought protective effects of six fungal and bacterial inoculants and ten consortia thereof on the vegetative growth, nutritional status, and tuberisation of potato under controlled and field conditions.

The trials were well-planned and executed. They allowed the research hypotheses to be verified. The "Introduction" chapter introduces the reader well to the research problem under study, although the authors should pay more attention to justifying the innovative nature of the research. The chapter 'Materials and Methods' is detailed. The results obtained were statistically analysed, which facilitated their correct description and conclusions.

I suggest that the authors pay attention to the following detailed comments:

1.       Please check the granulometric composition of the soil. Were the values confused between sand, silt, and clay?

2.       Please provide photos of plants to document greenhouse experiments and field studies.

 

3.       Please give the phosphorus content expressed as P per 1 kg dry matter soil, not mg P₂O₅ per 100 g soil. Please also report the potassium content as K, not K₂O per 100 g soil. Please give the sulphur content in mg per 1 kg of soil, not in %.

Author Response

Thank you for the valuable comments.

Comment 1:“ Please check the granulometric composition of the soil. Were the values confused between sand, silt, and clay?“

Response: The particle size distribution was not confused and fits with the USDA soil type classification for a silty clay-loam as specified in the Methods section

Comment 2: „Please provide photos of plants to document greenhouse experiments and field studies“.

Response: In the revised version, we provided the respective photos as Supplementary Figures S2 and S3 in the attached MS-Word file with updated supplementary material (280184 supplementary material.docx)

Comment 3: „ Please give the phosphorus content expressed as P per 1 kg dry matter soil, not mg P2O5 per 100 g soil. Please also report the potassium content as K, not K2O per 100 g soil. Please give the sulphur content in mg per 1 kg of soil, not in %“.

Response: We have revised Supplementary Table S1 accordingly (see attached file: author coverletter-3475876v1.docx))

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf