Characteristics of Chili (Capsicum annuum L.) That Are Resistant and Susceptible to Oriental Fruit Fly (Bactrocera dorsalis Hendel) Infestation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript entitled "Characteristics of chilis (Capsicum annuum L.) that are resistant and susceptible to fruit fly (Bactrocera dorsalis) infestation" submitted to the Editorial Board of Horticulturae is concerned with explaining the mechanism of susceptibility of chili plants, and in my opinion this is what should be included in the title.

I have no comments on the form of the abstract, keywords, also the introduction is well written.

The Materials and Methods subsection lacks you, and clarity about what forms of protection were used (line 78). The incidence of fruit flies was not observed by the number of plant infested divided by the total number of plants but checked! (lines 81-84).  Please check the first sentence in subheading  2.6. (page 3) The determination The selected volatile compounds? Probably ..the determination of selected volatile compounds....

Results

Subheading 3.2 (page 5)  In the second sentence, please explain what are differences to "significant differences among the varieties" , and what precise about "the other two".

The PCA analysis presented in Figure 5 and Figure 8 is difficult to read - please improve their quality (readability).

What is meant by the interjected phrase "this is figure" in the description of both Figure 9 and Figure 12?

Discussion

  Many sentences have room for linguistic improvement.

References

  Some of the publications included in the literature list were not cited. in the manuscript.

Please check the form of the journal names and pay particular attention to upper and lower case letters.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1

Thank your for your suggestion

My best regard 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

English language supervision is highly recommended.

Line 3: The common name of this insect is ’oriental fruit fly’ and using of the complete common name is highly recommended instead of ’fruit fly’ in all occurrences in the text.

Line 26: I suggest to delete antibiosis from keywords and add chili and Bactrocera dorsalis.

Line 33: Doublecheck of reference (Hasyim et al. 2014) is recommended, because the topic of this paper is totally different

Line 43: ’Bosland and Votava’ should be changed to ’Bosland et al.’

Line 57: Capsicum frutescens is the correct name

Lines 55-57: After this sentence reference is missing.

Line 78: What does it mean ’protection from pests’? Did you use any pesticides or other non-chemical control methods? Clarification is needed.

Line 103: Reference no. 10 is not written by Junior et al.

Lines 167-170: Results should be written more precisely. Not in all susceptible varieties was twice or six-seven times higher oviposition incident, yield loss or average fitness index respectively.

There is no information about the significant difference in connection with Figure 1. If there were no significant difference at all it should be let know in the text and in the Figure too.

Lines 185-186: Which 10 characters differed across varieties and which 12 characters showed no variation?

Line 187: You mention significant difference among varieties (here and later as well) however it could not bee seen at Figure 2 (or at other figures). Significant differences should be marked with different letters above the columns at all figures.

Please add more comments to Figure 2 because only general information is written about it.

Page 6: Small and capital letters are mixed in y axis labels at Figure 2. Standardization is needed.

Lines 224-225: This sentence is true except of RK-1 variety.

Lines 225-226: In some cases (volatile compounds no. 11, 13, 19, 20) there is smaller than 2% relative area, therefore correction of this sentence is needed.

Line 232: Table 1. should be referred.

Line 234: Table 1. should be referred after ’RK-5’.

Lines 234-237: This sentence fit to Discussion chapter.

Line 247: ’Table 3.’ should be changed to ’Table1’.

Line 259: Instead of ’lower than ocimene’ I suggest to write: ’lower than in the case of ocimene’

Line 262: Please delete: ’This is a figure.’

Line 266: Please mark the significant differences at Figure 10.

Line 270: Not all susceptible varieties had higher water content.

Line 289: Instead of ’fiber’ please write ’fiber content’.

Line 306: Instead of ’a significant difference’ I suggest to write: ’differences’.

Lines 305-308: Corrections are suggested as mentioned at Lines 167-170, however it would be better do not repeat the results.

Line 311: I don’t feel relevant to refer here to Helicoverpa armigera and to other plants than chili. I suggest to search references in connection with chili.

Lines 322-324: I suggest to incorporate these two sentences.

Line 330: ’Nufio et al.’ should be changed to ’Nufio and Papaj’

Line 332: You have written: ’several previous studies’. Please mention concrete references.

Lines 346-349: Please refer to literature source(s) at this sentence.

Lines 352-354: Please correct this sentence according to remark written at Line 270.

Lines 356-357: Instead of ’fruit fly grow well on the fruit’ I suggest to write the concrete fruit fly species.

Line 357: ’Hafsi’ should be changed to ’Hafsi et al.’

Lines 359-360: Instead of ’fruit fly from the species’ I suggest to write ’fruit fly species’

Line 360: Please use the complete scientific name of B. zonata

Line 370: Please denominate the concrete fruit fly species

Lines 373 and 376: Please denominate the concrete fruit fly species

Line 377: ’therefore do not have’ schould be changed to ’probably therefore have’ 

Line 388: ’(C. annuum L.)’ suggested to delete, it is unnecessary

Line 390: ’fruit fly’ suggested to change to B. dorsalis

Lines 392-394: ’(volatile compounds)’ and ’(oviposition)’ suggested to delete, they are unnecessary

In References chapter all words of journal names should be capitalized.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 2

Thank you for your correction and suggestion.

Here I enclosed the answer in the attachment

Thank you

My best regards

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Line 3: Please use both the common name and scientific name of the insect species in the title of the paper. Recommended title is:

Characteristics of chili (Capsicum annuum L.) varieties that are resistant  and susceptible to Oriental fruit fly (Bactrocera dorsalis Hendel) infestation

Line 29 Please write ’Oriental fruit fly (Bactrocera dorsalis) is the main insect pest ’ instead of ’fruit flies (Bactrocera dorsalis) are the main pests’

Line 81: Please let know dates and dose of insecticide applications. It should be also mention against which insect species insecticide applications were made.

Line 86: I think that ’Supplementary Table 1.’ is not connected to Material and Methods because it contains results. I suggest to skip it.

I highly recommend to write about significant differences in the text as well shortly in the case of Figures 1, 2, 6, 9, 10 such as follows:

Lines 187-190: I suggest to write: In comparison to susceptible varieties, resistant varieties have significantly narrower fruit width (Figure 2a), significantly lighter fruit weight (Figure 2b), significantly higher fruit set (Figure 2c), significantly smaller  fruit wall thickness (Figure 2d), significantly smaller fruit shape at the pedicel attachment (Figure 2e), and significantly rougher fruit surface (Figure 2f).

Line 229-233:  On the basis of Figure 7, six volatile compounds (according the numbering in Table 1: 1-Hexyne, 5-methyl-; Silanediol, dimethyl; Acetamide, 2-fluoro; 1-Octadecene, Butyl dodecyl ether; 1-Decanol, 2-hexyl) seem to be positively correlated to oviposition incident and none of them had a quality value above 90%. Please doublecheck this sentence and your results.

Line 233: ’%.’ is missing after ’90’

Line 325: Instead of ’insect pests’ I suggest to be more concrete and write ’fruit fly’ (you even refer to these species)

Line 327: Instead of ’insect pests’ I suggest to write ’insects pests like fruit fly species’

Lines 353-354: Instead of  ’The growth and development of of Oriental fruit fly larvae  from Bactrocera zonata…’ please write ’The larval growth and development of Bactrocera zonata…’

Lines 359-363. References No. 38 and 39  do not connected with Oriental fruit fly but other fruit fly species namely Anastrepha obliqua and Ceratitis capitata, respectively. Please mentione these scientific names in these sentences instead of writing ’Oriental fruit fly’.

In References chapter all words of journal names should be capitalized.  There are still some references not following MDPI style.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your comment and suggestion on our manuscript.

We added the common and scientific names of the fruit fly in the title;

Dates and dose of insecticides applications has been modified (line 80-83)

Supplementary table 1 has been skipped, Supplementary 2 was omitted in favor of Supplementary 1.

Adjustments have also been made to the compounds in accordance with Table 1.

The sentence has been modified to prevent a misunderstanding.

All references have been rechecked and adapted to follow MDPI style.

We hope that the changes we made to the manuscript are acceptable

Sincerely yours

Author Response File: Author Response.docx