Mitigating Water Stress and Enhancing Aesthetic Quality in Off-Season Potted Curcuma cv. ‘Jasmine Pink’ via Potassium Silicate Under Deficit Irrigation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In this manuscript, Vannak Sour and colleagues evaluated the potential of Curcuma cv. ‘Jasmine Pink’ for off-season cultivation during Thailand’s mild winter (October–February). I have following comments:

1, For the Title, I suggest to employ “Analysis of potassium silicate application on the water use efficiency and ornamental quality in off-season potted Curcuma cv. ‘Jasmine Pink’”.

2, For the Abstract, more values should be described. For instance, authors stated that “Both deficit irrigation treatments (50% ETc and 50% ETc + PS) significantly reduced plant height, leaf number, and biomass compared to 100% ETc while maintained a healthy and compact form. Notably, the addition of PS to the 50% ETc treatment improved aesthetic traits, such as leaf area and the compactness index. Furthermore, PS application enhanced the photosynthetic activity and electron transport rate and reduced non-photochemical quenching, indicating the mitigation of water stress.”, which is less covincing without data description.

3, For the key words, words appeared in the title should be removed from the list.

4, For the introduction, main conclusions and practical interests of this study should be stated in the last paragraph of this section.

5, For the Results, error values should be included in the Tables 1, 2, 3, and 4.

6, For the Discussion section, I would like to see an independent section divided into several subsections properly entitled.

7, For the Materials and methods, plant genotypes should be clearly described, and methods for the significance difference analysis is lacking.

Author Response

Please have a look at the attached file.

Best Regards

Dr. Panupon Hongpakdee

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

         I hope you are doing well.

     In view to the limited research on the effects of the treatment combination of deficit irrigation and potassium silicate on the growth and the quality of  Curcuma, this study answered to it through analysing the interactive effects of the treatment of deficit irrigation and potassium silicate on growth, physiology, and aesthetic traits of off-season potted Curcuma cv. ‘Jasmine Pink’. The experiment design was basically reasonable, and the data was full and analysed correctly, then the reliable conclusions were obtained. These study results can be used for guiding to make the reasonable programs of  produce managements.

       However, some contents need adding and some tables or figures need modifying, then I give some advice on the modification.

         1. Please add the necessary information of the pot soil, especially the contents of available potassium and available silicon.

          2. If it is possible, add to determine the indicator Tr. Why did you ignore it?

         3. In all tables, delete the columns  F-test 0.05% and CV (%), besides the value 0.05% was error and it had to be 5%. Actually the CV of the means of each treatment levels were needed, and the results were displayed by "mean±SD".

          4. In figure 2, use the English letters to show the significance of the differences, and only use the symbol * to display the significance of the difference between the two groups. Additionally, add the SD lines.

        5. Regarding to figure 3, pointing to each indicator to draw one figure to express the significance among the different treatment levels and among the different stages, then combine these 7 figures into one figure template. Additionally, add the SD lines.

         6.  Please transfer figure 4 into a table, then combine it and table 4. The values will be modified into the format "mean±SD" too.

         7. In section results, the description was too much, and the professional analysis of the results was too inadequate, so the analysis of the results based on the academic significance of the indicators needs adding.

       8. In section discussion, replicated the contents of the section results too much, in particular, pointing to the figures or the tables to summarize the results, so it needs simplified. 

Author Response

Please have a look at the attached file.

Best Regards

Dr. Panupon Hongpakdee

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

After reviewing the manuscript, my observations and recommendations are:

Title

The title is suggestive but is quite long (22 words) - can be shortened without loss of content.

“Aesthetic Quality” refers to the flower or leaf color, or to the entire plant vigor?

The abstract

The abstract is very well written, readable and clearly presents the objective, methods, main findings and conclusions.

• specify when PC was applied (weekly, twice a week) foliar or for root uptake.
• “widely cultivated” – vague (in which geographic area?)
• “significantly reduced” - add statistical significance

 The introduction

The introduction provides sufficient information for readers outside the immediate field of ornamental horticulture or plant physiology to be able to follow the logic of the exposition and understand how the research is conducted. The text is grammatically sound and syntactically clear.

 Materials and Methods

To a significant level, the outlined approaches are adequate for accomplishing the intended objectives. Experimental trials, measurements, and treatment applications are consistent with important components of plant breeding, and physiology provides answers to the study question. However, there are several areas that can be enhanced for improved scientific clarity.

Lines 82-83: How was rhizome uniformity provided prior to planting (in terms of initial weight, size, and number of buds)? Was "stimulation sprouting" measured or tested for uniformity across all rhizomes? Were all rhizomes at the same stage of development when planted?

Lines 98-107: Clearly specify every parameter in the ETc calculation formula (for example, Kc is crop coefficient, Kp is pan coefficient, and Epan is pan evaporation).

Provide the complete, explicit formula for Daily Water Applied (DWA). Clarify units for each parameter in the algorithm and provide consistent results for DWA (ml pot⁻¹).

The "0.021 (pot rim, represented area around canopy (m2))" phrase is quite challenging. Is it an area, and if so, how does it affect the calculation?

Lines 115-118: Provide the frequency of fertilizer application (weekly, biweekly, or monthly). How was "per plant" calculated if several plants were in the same pot? (In the results section (Lines 164-165) you mentioned applying the treatment weekly (1,000 ppm of PS)).

Lines 129-132: Specify the frequency of destructive sampling (e.g., "at the end of the experiment," or "at each growing stage as defined previously"). Determine whether all nine pots per treatment were destructively sampled at each step, implying very high plant utilization, or if only a subset was utilized, and if so, how many pots each measurement point.

Statistical analysis

The major statistical test employed to evaluate "significant treatment effects" is undefined. In a CRD with several treatments, an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) is the conventional and suitable test. Without specifying ANOVA, it's unclear how "significant treatment effects" were assessed prior to mean comparisons. LSD (Least Significant Difference) is a post-hoc test performed following a significant ANOVA result.

Clearer description of how data from various phenological phases were evaluated.

 

Results

A summary of the outcomes is given in the results section, which also covers the main goals concerning phenological changes, plant growth, yield, and photosynthetic metrics. The text skillfully draws attention to the key distinctions and patterns. The use of tables and figures to show the data is suitable.

Discussions

The "Discussions" section shows an adequate understanding of how plants react to water stress and the function of potassium silicate (PS) by skillfully relating the study's findings to previously published research. The structure makes sense, progressing from broad findings to particular physiological and morphological features before arriving at the PS mechanism.

Conclusions

The evidence provided in the "Results" and "Discussions" sections mainly supports the statements stated.

Line 351 and 353: The sentences overstate how much of an improvement PS can make. Plants under 50% ETc + PS did not entirely return to the growth and quality levels of plants under optimum (100% ETc) irrigation, despite PS's great assistance, as the data makes evident.

Line 345:  A semicolon should come before "however" and a comma should come after it when it joins two separate sentences.

Please pay attention to the revisions and recommendations in the text.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please have a look at the attached file.

Best Regards

Dr. Panupon Hongpakdee

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

Suggestions for correction are in the attached file.

Best regards,

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please have a look at the attached file.

Best Regards

Dr. Panupon Hongpakdee

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors Authors have positively respond to my questions in the revision.