Comparing Methods for the Analysis of δ¹³C in Falanghina Grape Must from Different Pedoclimatic Conditions

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Title: Do you assume different climatic conditions between the sampled vineyards? If not, remove "climatic" from title.  

Row 18-22: unclear, rephrase sentence. 

Row 31: replace "high-income" by "high-yield"

Row 35: It has been recently underlined by (give reference) that...

Row 36:..., are instead promising. -rewrite

Row 41: use another word for "design"

Row 45: although the term "water-stress" is correct, I would recommend to use throughout the manuscript the term "drought-stress" instead, as it better explains this condition. 

Row 71-72: Wrong, rewrite. 

Row 98: maybe better write: This might indicate that sugar berries carbon isotope signature partially reflects the...

Row 105: ..focused on...

Row 106: use a more appropriate word than "opportunity"

Row 129: what means "training system"?

Row 130-131: explain the different environmental and agricultural situations at the four selected sites and how they affect the 13C-value of the vines. Produce a table listing the differences of the respective influencing factors.  Include water managment. 

Fig. 1: show photographs of study sites that give informtion to the readers concerning the environmental and agricultural differences. 

Row 156: Advances?

Row 180: remove "either"

Sort figures in ascending order.

Results: Give a table with all results

Fig. 3: Show all 24 values in figure. 

Fig. 2: Show all 24 individual values in the figure (plus mean and standard error) instead of columns. 

Discussion: Explain the 13C-values by considering the respective environmental and agricultural conditions at the sampled sites to show that they are the reasons for isotopic differences.   

 

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for their careful reading of the manuscript and constructive remarks. We have taken the comments on board to improve and clarify the manuscript. In particular we have modified the sentences and paragraphs according reviewer’ suggestions. Further we added a table with information on sampling sites in order to show the different pedoclimatic characteristics of the sites.

We believe that the manuscript is now more concise and clearer and we hope that the reviewers find it suitable for publication.

The changes are highlighted in the text in red colour.

 Please find below a detailed point-by-point response to all comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

General comments

The work is well done and structured. In my opinion the study should be repeated for two years.

Authors must explain well what their new contribution is in the discussion part.

 

Specific comments:

Lines 119-121: The coordinates do not reflect the center of the four vineyards. The coordinates should indicate the center of each of the four study areas.

Figure 1. The location of the study area could be replaced by another that will provide more information.

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for appreciating our study. We agree with the reviewer that for agronomic papers on grapevine, plant monitoring is desirable for at least two years in order to consider the possible influence of changing climatic conditions on vine growth behavior. However, this is a methodological paper aiming to compare two methods of extractions for the determination of d13C and is not willing to going deep in vineyard behavior among years. Moreover, by considering four vineyards characterized by different pedoclimatic conditions, we already considered the possible influence of such changing conditions on the comparison between the two methods.

We highlighted our new contribution in the discussion part. Lines: 240-243; 281-289.

 

Specific comments:

Q1 Lines 119-121: The coordinates do not reflect the center of the four vineyards. The coordinates should indicate the center of each of the four study areas.

R1. We thank the reviewer for this comment, and we added more precise coordinates.

 

Q2 Figure 1. The location of the study area could be replaced by another that will provide more information.

R2. Since it is not easy to find figures including all environmental/agronomic data about the study area, we added a table (table 1) with additional information.

Reviewer 3 Report

In this study, the analysis of δ¹³C was performed on grapevines must (Falanghina cv.) growing in different pedoclimatic conditions. The analysis of δ¹³C was tested as an indicator of vines water use especially to evaluate vine adaptation ability to drought.

Line 29 frequent, prolonged, and

Line 31 that is cultivated

Line 31 rain-fed regime (not clear)

Lines 33-35 it is suggested to deepen the water stress discussion with other interesting works

• Naulleau, A., Gary, C., Prévot, L., & Hossard, L. (2021). Evaluating strategies for adaptation to climate change in grapevine production–A systematic review. Frontiers in plant science, 11, 2154.

Lines 45-25 it is suggested to deepen the water stress discussion with other interesting works

• Cataldo, E., Salvi, L., & Mattii, G. B. (2021). Effects of irrigation on ecophysiology, sugar content and thiol precursors (3-S-cysteinylhexan-1-ol and 3-S-glutathionylhexan-1-ol) on Vitis vinifera cv. Sauvignon Blanc. Plant Physiology and Biochemistry, 164, 247-259.

Line 47 can have a negative impact on plant growth, structure, and

Line 62 The carbon isotope

Line 119 2)

Line 120 3) …… 4)

Lines 125-126 The vineyards were selected as much as possible similar for plant material and cultivation techniques, apart from the water availability. Unclear and misleading statement

Line 131 weather shed data?

Lines 132-133 with what criteria were the sample plants chosen?

merge sub-chapters 2.3 2.4

Lines 142-149 add tools description

An actual measure of the water status of the vine (pressure chamber) and weather data are missing. it is advisable to re-elaborate the discussion in the light of only the data available

Line 162 Nowadays the negative effects of climate changes

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for summarizing the main findings of our paper.

 

Q1 Line 29 frequent, prolonged, and

R1 Done

 

Q2 Line 31 that is cultivated

R2 We rephrased this sentence as also requested by another reviewer.

 

Q3 Line 31 rain-fed regime (not clear)

R3. We prefer keeping this a technical term indicating that irrigation is not provided.

 

Q4 Lines 33-35 it is suggested to deepen the water stress discussion with other interesting works

• Naulleau, A., Gary, C., Prévot, L., & Hossard, L. (2021). Evaluating strategies for adaptation to climate change in grapevine production–A systematic review. Frontiers in plant science, 11, 2154

R4 Done. We agree with the reviewer that it would be interesting to deepen the discussion with works more related on water stress. Therefore, we added a comment and the suggested reference, without deepening too much the discussion for not going out of focus of the paper. Row 37-39.  Reference [2]

Q5 Lines 45-25 it is suggested to deepen the water stress discussion with other interesting works

• Cataldo, E., Salvi, L., & Mattii, G. B. (2021). Effects of irrigation on ecophysiology, sugar content and thiol precursors (3-S-cysteinylhexan-1-ol and 3-S-glutathionylhexan-1-ol) on Vitis vinifera cv. Sauvignon Blanc. Plant Physiology and Biochemistry, 164, 247-259.

R5 Done. We agree with the reviewer that it would be interesting to deepen the discussion with works more related on water stress. Therefore, we added a comment and the suggested reference, without deepening too much the discussion for not going out of focus of the paper. Row 44-46 Reference [4]

Q6 Line 47 can have a negative impact on plant growth, structure, and

R6 Done

 

Q7 Line 62 The carbon isotope

R7. Done.

 

Q8 Line 119 2)

R8 Done.

 

Q9 Line 120 3) …… 4)

R9 Done.

 

Q10 Lines 125-126 The vineyards were selected as much as possible similar for plant material and cultivation techniques, apart from the water availability. Unclear and misleading statement

Line 131 weather shed data?

R10. We better specified the features of vineyard and available data about pedoclimatic conditions by adding a table (table 1). Row 156-157

 

Q12 Lines 132-133 with what criteria were the sample plants chosen?

R12 We chose plants which did not show signs of diseases or mechanical stress.

 

Q13 merge sub-chapters 2.3 2.4

R13. Done.

 

Q14 Lines 142-149 add tools description

R14 We already described our methods, saying that the procedure started from the protocols used by Devaux and Perini and modified as specified in the text. Thus we can not completely follow which tools we should include in the text. The methodology is already described

 

.

Q15 An actual measure of the water status of the vine (pressure chamber) and weather data are missing. it is advisable to re-elaborate the discussion in the light of only the data available

R15. We added additional information on environmental conditions of the four vineyards, soil type, management and yield efficiency which give an idea of the different conditions and vigor of the vines (ref. table 1).  Although the other reviewers asked to deepen the discussion about the effects of water stress, we agree to keep the discussion focused on the comparison of methods.

 

Q16 Line 162 Nowadays the negative effects of climate changes

R16. Done.

 

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors do not want to show the individual results in their Fig. 2 (where exactly the same data are shown as in their Table 2 (site versus d13C), even though there are just 3 sample points per each column) and this data are not freely available (only on request). This is something irritating to me, as they claim that the manuscript is about comparison of methods - but they don´t show the raw data for their comparison (only indirectly in Fig. 3).

Furthermore, the discussion/explanation of the d13C in context to the respective environmetal conditions is just minimal (I assume it is from row 269 to 272, as the row numbers mentioned in the reply of the authors (610-612) seem to be related to another manuscript format). 

Although they report the "yield efficiency" and "soil managment" of the respective sites, they don´t discuss the isotope results with respect to these (and other available) parameters.  

row 255: better write non-representativeness

Author Response

C1.

The authors do not want to show the individual results in their Fig. 2 (where exactly the same data are shown as in their Table 2 (site versus d13C), even though there are just 3 sample points per each column) and this data are not freely available (only on request). This is something irritating to me, as they claim that the manuscript is about comparison of methods - but they don´t show the raw data for their comparison (only indirectly in Fig. 3).

 

R1.

We removed the data from Table 2 that we added in the previous revision likely misunderstanding the reviewer’s request. Further, we reported the raw data in figure 2 together with the mean data, standard errors and results of one-way ANOVA.

C2.

Furthermore, the discussion/explanation of the d13C in context to the respective environmetal conditions is just minimal (I assume it is from row 269 to 272, as the row numbers mentioned in the reply of the authors (610-612) seem to be related to another manuscript format). 

Although they report the "yield efficiency" and "soil managment" of the respective sites, they don´t discuss the isotope results with respect to these (and other available) parameters.

R2.

We added requested discussion. We cannot go further in details to avoid speculating and distorting the scope of the paper that is not intended for making any agronomic/ecological comparison.

 

R3.

row 255: better write non-representativeness

C3. Done

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors

no further modifications are required. It is accepted

Author Response

Thank you for handling this paper