Assessing Growth Performance and Agrometeorological Indices of Matricaria chamomilla L. Governed by Growing Season Length and Salicylic Acid in the Western Himalaya
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsIn the paper “Assessing growth performance and agro-meteorological indices of Matricaria chamomilla L. governed by growing season length and elicitor’s effect in the Western Himalaya”, the authors investigated the effects of weather conditions on development and crop production in the Western Himalayan region, of German chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla L.), a medicinal and aromatic crop, by the conduction of field experiments for two years and considering four different sowing times and three levels of salicylic acid application. Agro-meteorological indices were worked out for four different sowing times. The results revealed that the number of days required for attaining each phenological stage decreased with a delay in sowing time and in general, that the agro-meteorological indices can be associated with the production of German chamomile.
The work is a furtherance of a previous publication, cited by the authors (Ref. 15): it is interesting, but to be suitable for publication in Horticulture, it needs important and major revisions.
Abstract:
Line 13: indicate which years.
Line 15: soil acidic conditions.
Line 17: specify the three levels of salicylic acid application.
Introduction:
The introduction needs to be carefully revised: many concepts are repeated, while some information, necessary for the clarity of the paper, is missing, such as the reason for choosing salicylic acid as a treatment. English needs a bit of revision, and some typos need to be corrected.
Line 43: compounds “is” associated.
Line 50-60: some concepts are repeated in Lines 81-82 (and partially in Line 75-76).
Line 63: remove “and” before soil.
Line 65: remove semicolon - ;
Line 80: remove “and”.
Introduce and explain the reason for the SA application as treatments.
Material and Methods:
Line 107: What is the reason for using N as urea instead of nitrate?
In the paragraph “Agrometeorological indices” the formulas for calculating the GDD, HTU, and PTU are described. For GDD the correct formulas is: GDD =∑i=specifyn (Tmax + Tmin)/ 2-Tb and not (Tmax – Tmin).
Verify the units of “Helio thermal unit (HTU °C day hour) = S (GDD ×day length)” and
“Photothermal unit (PTU°C day hour) = S (GDD ×actual bright sunshine hours)”, appear to have been reversed.
Helio thermal unit (HTU °C day hour) = S (GDD × actual bright sunshine hours) and
Photothermal unit (PTU°C day hour) = S (GDD × day length).
View the ref: Singh, A. K. (2008). Heat unit requirements for phenophases of wheat genotypes as influenced by sowing dates. Journal of Agrometeorology, 10(2), 209-212, and also ref 18 in the paper.
HUE is cited in Materials and Methods, but no data and results are reported for this parameter. The authors should add this data or remove the parameter HUE.
It would be appropriate to refer to "Supplementary Table S1" for a clearer interpretation of the agrometeorological indices.
Discussion:
The discussion section should be improved by describing the significance of the results, while some parts of the text look like a repetition of the data obtained. Moreover, no discussion was reported on the effect of SA application on the different parameters. No discussion on correlation data is reported.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThe English can be improved.
Author Response
Comment 1: Line 13: indicate which years.
Response 1: Thank you for pointing out this. We have now mentioned the years i.e. 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 in the abstract section at line 13.
Comment 2: Line 15: soil acidic conditions.
Response 2: As per the valuable suggestion the correction has been made in Line 15 of the abstract section.
Comment 3: Line 17: specify the three levels of salicylic acid application.
Response 3: As per the valuable suggestion of the reviewer we have now added the salicylic acid levels (viz., SA0: 0 mg/L, SA1: 25 mg/L, SA2: 50 mg/L) in Line 17 of abstract section.
Introduction:
Comment 4: The introduction needs to be carefully revised: many concepts are repeated, while some information, necessary for the clarity of the paper, is missing, such as the reason for choosing salicylic acid as a treatment. English needs a bit of revision, and some typos need to be corrected.
Response 4: The introduction section has been revised as per the suggestion. The reason of choosing salicylic acid and its role has also been detailed in the section. English and typing error are now corrected.
Comment 5: Line 43: compounds “is” associated.
Response 5: The correction has been made according to the suggestion in Line 44 of the revised version.
Comment 6: Line 50-60: some concepts are repeated in Lines 81-82 (and partially in Line 75-76).
Response 6: Thank you for suggestion, we agree there are repeatition in the mentioned lines; eralier lines 50-60 are revised to remove repeatition and now read as line 50-56 in the revised version. Also, the earlier Line 75-76 i.e. “German chamomile is particularly……. production” has been now removed from the revised version. The repeated concepts from the earlier Lines 81-82 are now removed and modified in Line 78-73 in revised version.
Comment 7: Line 63: remove “and” before soil.
Response 7: As the suggestion correction has been made in Line 59 of the revised version.
Comment 8: Line 65: remove semicolon - ;
Response 8: Earlier line 65 has been completely modified now in Line 61-62 in revised version.
Comment 9: Line 80: remove “and”.
Response 9: The earlier Line 80 has been now revised in Line 68-70 of revised version.
Comment 10: Introduce and explain the reason for the SA application as treatments.
Response 10: According to the reviewer’s valuable suggestion now we have introduced salicylic acid (SA) in the introduction and explained its role in diverse medicinal aromatic crops in Line 71-84. SA is endogenous availabile within the plants but in minute quantities and it has reported role in growth, yield and quality improvement in diverse crops. So, we thought of utilizing SA as a exogenous elicitor to observe the response of German chamomile. We done a preliminary study where we used these doses of SA as foliar spray on the seedlings of German chamomile on small laboratory scale and observed no visual harmful effect on the plants. Thus, the whole thought was to take the doses for first time from lower level concentration i.e. SA0: 0 mg/L, SA1: 25 mg/L, SA2: 50 mg/L foliar application in field experiment and if these doses effectively enhance the performance then we can go for higher doses or combination of SA with other elicitors in future experiment.
Material and Methods:
Comment 11: Line 107: What is the reason for using N as urea instead of nitrate?
Response 11: We agree with the reviewer that readily available source of nitrogen i.e. nitrate fertilizer can be used instaed of urea but we have used urea because of its high nitrogen content (46%) compared to other sources ammonium nitrate (34%), calcium nitrate (15.5%), or potassium nitrate (13%); the nitrogen in urea is in available form can be readily absorbed up by the plants upon hydrolysis in soil and time to time application also done at different stages. Additionally, the soils of the region are rich in calcium and potassium so we avoided the use of calcium and potassium nitrates because we have applied required doses of potassium separately through muriate of potash because it is a major primary macro nutrient.
Comment 12: In the paragraph “Agrometeorological indices” the formulas for calculating the GDD, HTU, and PTU are described. For GDD the correct formulas is: GDD =∑i=specifyn (Tmax + Tmin)/ 2-Tb and not (Tmax – Tmin).
Response 12: We agree with the reviewer for correctly pointing the mistake; it was a typographical error now has been corrected in Line 129 in Agrometeorological indicies paragraph. .
Comment 13: Verify the units of “Helio thermal unit (HTU °C day hour) = S (GDD ×day length)” and
“Photothermal unit (PTU°C day hour) = S (GDD ×actual bright sunshine hours)”, appear to have been reversed.
Helio thermal unit (HTU °C day hour) = S (GDD × actual bright sunshine hours) and
Photothermal unit (PTU°C day hour) = S (GDD × day length).
Response 13: We thank you reviewer for rightly pointing out the error. We have now corrected the reversed units of HTU and PTU in Line 134-135.
Comment 14: View the ref: Singh, A. K. (2008). Heat unit requirements for phenophases of wheat genotypes as influenced by sowing dates. Journal of Agrometeorology, 10(2), 209-212, and also ref 18 in the paper.
Response 14: As per the reviewer’s suggestion we have checked the reference [18] in the manuscript which is: “Singh, A., Rao, V.U M., Singh, D., Singh, R., Study on agrometeorological indices for soybean crop under different growing environments. Journal of Agrometeorology 2007. 9(1), 81–85” and was cited at Line 89 and Line 135 in earlier version but now only cited at one place i.e. Line 81 as Ref. 22 for soybean to eliminate confusion. Also mentioned the crop names i.e. wheat and soybean corresponding to references [21, 22] in Line 81. And there is no reference as “Singh, A. K. (2008). Heat unit requirements for phenophases of wheat genotypes as influenced by sowing dates. Journal of Agrometeorology, 10(2), 209-212” in the paper.
Comment 15: HUE is cited in Materials and Methods, but no data and results are reported for this parameter. The authors should add this data or remove the parameter HUE.
Response 15: As per the reviewer’s suggestion the the parameter HUE is now removed from Materials and Methods sections.
Comment 16: It would be appropriate to refer to "Supplementary Table S1" for a clearer interpretation of the agrometeorological indices.
Response 16: As per the suggestion Supplementary Table S1 is now refered with Table 1,2, and 3 for clearer interpretation of agrometeorological indicies in Line 177, 200, 217.
Discussion:
Comment 17: The discussion section should be improved by describing the significance of the results, while some parts of the text look like a repetition of the data obtained. Moreover, no discussion was reported on the effect of SA application on the different parameters. No discussion on correlation data is reported.
Response 17: The discussion section has been now improved to remove the repetition. The effect of SA on different parameters in now added. Although the effect of SA on different agrometeorological parameters did not showed any regular trend but the role of SA in improving the diverse growth and metabolic processes has been discussed in the revised version as per the suggestion of the reviewer. SA role in relation to growth analysis parameters also discussed in the revised version now.The correltaion data and regression data has been also now included in discussion.
Comments on the Quality of English Language
The English can be improved.
English has been revised throughout the manuscript.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe author’s study on "Assessing growth performance and agro-meteorological indices of Matricaria chamomilla L. governed by growing season length and elicitor’s effect in the Western Himalaya" is quite meaningful, but there are certain issues.
The title of the paper does not mention that the author used SA treatment; it should include "SA-induced" for clarity.
Line 65 detailed extensive German chamomile growth" appears abruptly and needs clarification or better integration.
The introduction does not even mention the role of SA at all.
Line 104, how was fertilization applied (directly applied, plowing or others)?
Line 117 Is there a basis for choosing the concentration of SA (line 117)? Why were these particular concentrations selected? Was there a preliminary experiment or was it based on refs?
Lines 156-196: The explanation of the results doesn’t need so many separate paragraphs.
Lines 427-428: "The results coincide with [16, 29] that delayed sowing decreased GDD accumulation in Tagetes minuta and Trifolium repens." This citation style is incorrect. A more standardized citation style should be used, like in the following example: and "Similar results with a decreased GDD in late sowing were also demonstrated by [32] and [33] in brassica and amaranth." The author should revise the entire manuscript to ensure consistent citation formatting.
Lines 435-441: The increase in SA application leading to a decrease in GDD accumulation could benefit from further discussion regarding the possible mechanisms.
Finally, since the study was based on a single experimental plot, has the potential spatial heterogeneity of the plot been considered in the results? Is there data from multiple locations to support the conclusions?
Author Response
Comment 1: The title of the paper does not mention that the author used SA treatment; it should include "SA-induced" for clarity.
Response 1: According to the reviewer’s suggestion salicylic acid is now included in the title “Assessing growth performance and agro-meteorological indices of Matricaria chamomilla L. governed by growing season length and salicylic acid in the Western Himalaya”
Comment 2: Line 65 detailed extensive German chamomile growth" appears abruptly and needs clarification or better integration.
Response 2: Thank you for pointing out this, here we are referring to wide adaptability of German chamomile to diverse soils and lands that are not suitable for other crops cultivation. We agree to your suggestion that the sentence is missing its clarity. We have now revised the sentence to make it understand. The sentence has now been modified in Line 60-61 as “Additionally, it thrives extensively in clayey lime soils of Hungarian region which are considered poor for any other crop”.
Comment 3: The introduction does not even mention the role of SA at all.
Response 3: According to the reviewer’s valuable suggestion we have now added role of SA in the introduction section in Line 73-84.
Comment 4: Line 104, how was fertilization applied (directly applied, plowing or others)?
Response 4: The fertilization including FYM, P2O5, K2O and 1/3rd dose of nitrogen were applied and mixed in the soil at the time of field ploughing and the remaining dose of nitrogen was applied as top dressing during plant elongation and flower initiation stages between the rows of plants. The required information now added in Line 94 and 97; and top dressing of remaining nitrogen was done through top dressing which is mentioned in Line 101.
Comment 5: Line 117 Is there a basis for choosing the concentration of SA (line 117)? Why were these particular concentrations selected? Was there a preliminary experiment or was it based on refs?
Response 5: The doses were selected by preliminary study in lab scale and also inspired from the earlier research on Matricaria chamomilla L. by Ghasemi et al., 2016. The role of SA is well reported in growth, yield and quality improvement in diverse medicinal aromatic crops and also in Matricaria chamomilla L. by Ghasemi et al., 2016 under normal and heat stressed conditions. So, we planned to utilize SA from lower concentration i.e. SA0: 0 mg/L, SA1: 25 mg/L, SA2: 50 mg/L in field experiment with diverse sowing dates (which provide different weather conditions for the plants) and if these doses effectively enhance the performance then we can go for higher/lower doses or combination of SA with other elicitors in future experiments. We have also done a small preliminary study where we used these doses of SA as foliar spray on German chamomile in laboratory scale and observed no visual harmful effects on the plants thus taken these doses to field experiment.
Comment 6: Lines 156-196: The explanation of the results doesn’t need so many separate paragraphs.
Response 6: Line 156 to 196 in earlier version are now Line 142 to 159 are the formulas and full forms of abbreviations in formulas for growth analysis. We consider this is essential for the understanding of abbreviated forms in formulas, we have now added the detail of the formula in Supplementary section. The correction has been made in Line 146 to 166.
Comment 7: Lines 427-428: "The results coincide with [16, 29] that delayed sowing decreased GDD accumulation in Tagetes minuta and Trifolium repens." This citation style is incorrect. A more standardized citation style should be used, like in the following example: and "Similar results with a decreased GDD in late sowing were also demonstrated by [32] and [33] in brassica and amaranth." The author should revise the entire manuscript to ensure consistent citation formatting.
Response 7: According to the reviewer’s suggestion the earlier Lines 427-428: "The results coincide with [16, 29] that delayed sowing decreased GDD accumulation in Tagetes minuta and Trifolium repens." has been now revised as Lines 388-389 in revised version. The citation in the entire manuscript has been revised.
Comment 8: Lines 435-441: The increase in SA application leading to a decrease in GDD accumulation could benefit from further discussion regarding the possible mechanisms.
Response 8: As per the reviewer’s suggestion we have now added further discussion on SA to decrease the heat unit accumulation in Lines 403 to 407 in revised version.
Comment 9: Finally, since the study was based on a single experimental plot, has the potential spatial heterogeneity of the plot been considered in the results? Is there data from multiple locations to support the conclusions?
Response 9: The study was executed on single experimental plot but to minimize the spatial heterogeneity we have executed the experiment with three replications, selected a uniform plot area, randomly allocated the treatments across the plot, and collected data from two sites from each replication plot. The experiment was executed on single location and we don’t have data from multiple locations but the study evaluated the agrometeorological indices which is beneficial for the pioneer growers in other region to know the suitability of the crop for their region by simply knowing the weather data of that region.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe paper can be accepted in its present form for publication.
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe author has addressed my questions, and I have no further comments.
