Preharvest Foliar Spraying Combined with Postharvest Salicylic Acid Treatment Regulates Panzao (Ziziphus jujuba Mill. cv. ‘Jingcang1’) Fruit Quality and Softening during Storage

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

1. Summary

Dear Editor,

Thank you for giving us the valuable opportunity to modify our manuscript “Preharvest foliar spraying combined with postharvest salicylic acid treatment regulates panzao (Ziziphus jujuba Mill. cv. 'Jingcang1') fruit quality and softening during storage” (ID: horticulturae-2694532). We are also grateful to the reviewers for constructive comments and valuable suggestions. These play an important role in guiding our future research and help us improve further. We have considered the comments carefully and have made corrections which we hope will meet with approval. Revised portions are marked in red in the paper. In the revised manuscript, significant changes are highlighted.

Please find the detailed responses to all comments below and the corresponding revisions/corrections are highlighted/in track changes in the re-submitted files.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you and the reviewers have any queries.

With kind regards,

Yours sincerely,

Xiaomei Zhao.

Corresponding authors: Xiaomei Zhao and Yupeng Tan.

2. Questions for General Evaluation

Reviewer’s Evaluation

Response and Revisions

Does the introduction provide sufficient background and include all relevant references?

Yes

Are all the cited references relevant to the research?

Yes

Is the research design appropriate?

Yes

Are the methods adequately described?

Yes

Are the results clearly presented?

Yes

Are the conclusions supported by the results?

Yes

3. Point-by-point response to Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Comments 1:

Does the fruit change color naturally after harvesting or should it always remain green?

Response 1:

Thank you for your detailed review of the article, and the following response to the questions you posed:

The skin of panzao (Ziziphus jujuba Mill. cv. 'Jingcang1') remains green while it is immature, and then gradually changes from green to red as the fruit matures. The unripe fruit will also gradually turn red during storage after picking. The color of the peel of panzao at different maturity levels was described in a previously published article by our group, titled: Effects of harvest maturity on storage quality and antioxidative capacity of Ziziphus jujube 'Jingcang1' (https://link.cnki.net/doi/10.13995/j.cnki.11-1802/ts.031042). The appearance of jujube fruits is also described in the article published by Mahmood Atif et al. entitled: Pre-trained deep learning-based classification of jujube fruits according to their maturity level (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00521-022-07213-5). Photographs of panzao at different stages of maturity are included below.

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

1. Summary

Dear Editor,

Thank you for giving us the valuable opportunity to modify our manuscript “Preharvest foliar spraying combined with postharvest salicylic acid treatment regulates panzao (Ziziphus jujuba Mill. cv. 'Jingcang1') fruit quality and softening during storage” (ID: horticulturae-2694532). We are also grateful to the reviewers for constructive comments and valuable suggestions. These play an important role in guiding our future research and help us improve further. We have considered the comments carefully and have made corrections which we hope will meet with approval. Revised portions are marked in red in the paper. In the revised manuscript, significant changes are highlighted.

Please find the detailed responses to all comments below and the corresponding revisions/corrections are highlighted/in track changes in the re-submitted files.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you and the reviewers have any queries.

With kind regards,

Yours sincerely,

Xiaomei Zhao.

Corresponding authors: Xiaomei Zhao and Yupeng Tan.

2. Questions for General Evaluation

Reviewer’s Evaluation

Response and Revisions

Does the introduction provide sufficient background and include all relevant references?

Yes

Are all the cited references relevant to the research?

Yes

Is the research design appropriate?

Yes

Are the methods adequately described?

Yes

Are the results clearly presented?

Yes

Are the conclusions supported by the results?

Yes

3. Point-by-point response to Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Comments 1:

Is Panzao synonymous with Jujube?

Response 1:

Panzao is synonymous with Ziziphus jujuba Mill. cv. 'Jingcang1', which in China is customarily referred to as panzao.

Comments 2:

E' Ziziphus jujuba suitable for the high quality short markets?” Is very interesting.

Response 2:

Panzao (Ziziphus jujuba Mill. cv. 'Jingcang1') is a nutritious and expensive seasonal fruit, which has a broad consumer market in China. However, because it is prone to deterioration in quality during the marketing period and is not resistant to storage, huge economic losses can be incurred. Therefore, we carried out a study on the storage and preservation of panzao with the aim of prolonging the marketing period under the premise of guaranteeing the good quality of the product.

Comments 3: 

Ln 85-94: FF+SA treatment group. Pre-harvest treatment for leaves and post-harvest treatment for fruits.

FF only foliar treatment, no fruit treatment. only fruit treatment in water,

SA only treatment with salicic acid to fruits.

Is this the right sequence?

Response 3: 

Yes

Comments 4:

Ln 101 although the bibliographic reference for firmness is present, the authors could report the tool used.

Response 4: 

Information on instruments used has been supplemented. [Lines 115–116]

Comments 5:

In all figures do the authors reproduce the means and SD or ES? The arrangement of the letters is unclear, but understandable.

Response 5: 

Three parallel tests were done to reproduce the means and SD during the determination of all our indicators, which have been described in detail in the methods section of this paper. The authors have removed the letters from the graphs to show the pictured data clearly. The graphs were also redrawn.

Comments 6:

Figure 2. the authors could center the caption in relation to the photo, it could be more harmonious.

Response 6: 

The title of figure 2 has been reorganized

Response to Reviewer 3 Comments

1. Summary

Dear Editor,

Thank you for giving us the valuable opportunity to modify our manuscript “Preharvest foliar spraying combined with postharvest salicylic acid treatment regulates panzao (Ziziphus jujuba Mill. cv. 'Jingcang1') fruit quality and softening during storage” (ID: horticulturae-2694532). We are also grateful to the reviewers for constructive comments and valuable suggestions. These play an important role in guiding our future research and help us improve further. We have considered the comments carefully and have made corrections which we hope will meet with approval. Revised portions are marked in red in the paper. In the revised manuscript, significant changes are highlighted.

Please find the detailed responses to all comments below and the corresponding revisions/corrections are highlighted/in track changes in the re-submitted files.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you and the reviewers have any queries.

With kind regards,

Yours sincerely,

Xiaomei Zhao.

Corresponding authors: Xiaomei Zhao and Yupeng Tan.

2. Questions for General Evaluation

Reviewer’s Evaluation

Response and Revisions

Does the introduction provide sufficient background and include all relevant references?

Must be improved

The authors has revised the section

Are all the cited references relevant to the research?

Must be improved

The authors has revised the section

Is the research design appropriate?

Yes

Are the methods adequately described?

Must be improved

The authors has revised the section

Are the results clearly presented?

Must be improved

The authors has revised the section

Are the conclusions supported by the results?

Must be improved

The authors has revised the section

3. Point-by-point response to Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Comments 1:

The manuscript ‘Preharvest foliar spraying combined on panzao…  ‘ describes a study on  the effects of pre- and post-harvest salicylic acid treatments on fruit quality, and storability of jujube. The studied topic is interesting with high agronomic importance considering that salicylic acid is non-harmful chemical. Yet, there are  similar studies on various other fruit species and according to my knowledge the study by Yang et al. (2022 Food Chemistry 397, 133788) also describes the effects of postharvest application 3 mM salicylic acid on jujube and a comparison with results of the present study need to be included.

The significance in the present study is that a) pre-harvest application was also included and b) a much higher postharvest dose was used (30 mM vs 3 mM) with still positive effects on fruit storability, considering that high doses may have negative effects.

In the statistical analyses there is no information which test was used to determine differences among individual means. It is strange that means with standard deviations that overlap, yet they are presented with different letters indicating significant differences. The Tukey multiple range test is advised to be used. Therefore,  the discussion also need  to be written.

Response 1: 

We agree with these comments. We have, accordingly, modified the manuscript to incorporate these points. The authors analyzed and discussed the findings of Yang et al. and added relevant references in the discussion section of the article.

The concentration of salicylic acid used in this study was obtained from the pre-test screening conducted by the group in the early stage, and the corresponding research results were published 'Effect of Salicylic Acid Combined with Microporous Plastic Bag on Quality of Ziziphus jujube 'Jingcang1' During Storage' (https://kns.cnki.net/kcms/detail/11.1759.TS.20220704.1009.001. html). html).

We have added information on relevant data analysis methods in section 2.7. Data Processing and Statistical Analysis.

The graphs were redrawn.We have deleted the alphabetical labeling in the images to make them more harmonious, and the results section also now shows the description of the analysis of the significant differences between the treatment groups.

Comments 2:

Line 36- need re-writing, panzao is a type of jujube I understand and cv Jingcang1 is the important variety.

Response 2: 

We have rewritten and redacted the Line 36 section of the article.

Comments 3:

Line 42- more information should be included, for example what is fumigation etc

How did you choose the concentration applied. There are studies showing that high salicylic acid treatments may have negative effects.

Response 3:

We referred to first, the published literature of Zhang et al. 'Effects of Different Concentrations of Salicylic Acid Treatments on the Fresh-Keeping Effect of Winter Jujube' (DOI:10.3969/j.issn.1009-6221.2020.06.006); second, the results of experimental studies carried out in other fruits in our institute 'Effects of Salicylic Acid Spray Fumigation on Postharvest Quality of Xinjiang Xiaobai Apricot' (DOI: 10.13982/j.mfst.1673-9078.2020.1.016); and thirdly we had carried out pre-experiments and the relevant findings were published in the journal Science and Technology of Food Industry 'Effect of salicylic acid combined with microporous plastic bag on quality of Ziziphus jujube Mill. cv. 'Jingcang1' during storage' (DOI:10.13386/j.issn1002-0306.2022020204).

Comments 4:

There is no information on which institute the experimental belongs to. The experimental station has an average altitude? I don’t understand what does this mean.

Temperature- annual average mean daily temperature

Precipitation- Annual sum of precipitation

I don’t think that it is important to mention the evaporation, annual shunshine and frost-free period.

Response 4:

We have added relevant information to the article and redlined it, in addition to removing some unimportant information. [Lines 82–87]

Comments 5:

There is no information a)  what does the fertilizers contain, b) how many replicate trees were used, c) at what growth stage was the fruit were foliar treatment was applied, d) why the concentration applied was chosen? And e) how many replicate fruit was used for each analyses made, how color was measured, how PCA analyses was made….

Response 5:

We have added relevant information to the article and highlighted it in red.

Comments 6:

Line 100. The word ‘sensory’ refers to taste, smell etc. Fruit quality and physiological parameters were analyzed.

Response 6:

We have revised the relevant content.

Comments 7:

Line 104. TA is not considered as ‘nutritional inicator’

Response 7:

We have revised the relevant content.

Comments 8:

Line 106 and 110 Some information about the methods used need to be presented.

Response 8:

We have added the relevant information and highlighted it in red.