Brassinosteroids Improve Postharvest Quality, Antioxidant Compounds, and Reduce Chilling Injury in ‘Arrayana’ Mandarin Fruits under Cold Storage
, Helber Enrique Balaguera-López 1,* and Javier Giovanni Álvarez-Herrera 2Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
1. What is the significance of this study that the author does not present in the abstract.
2. In the introduction, the author mentioned that cold damage occurred at the end of shelf life when the citrus was stored at 2℃ for 40 days, while cold damage occurred at the end of shelf life when the citrus was stored at 4℃ for 40 days in the experiment. Do different storage temperatures affect the probability of cold damage? Will this have an impact on the author's research?
3. The authors only tested the physical and biochemical characteristics of citrus in three time periods, especially in the display in Figure 4. The data sample size is too small.
4. Citrus brown spot is related to the proportion of gas in the air. Did the authors consider the effect of the ratio of oxygen and carbon dioxide on the experimental error?
Author Response
The authors thank you for your important concept about our manuscript and for the important suggestions, which were considered and have improved the quality of our document.
Reviewer 1
- What is the significance of this study that the author does not present in the abstract.
Response: Correction was made
- In the introduction, the author mentioned that cold damage occurred at the end of shelf life when the citrus was stored at 2℃ for 40 days, while cold damage occurred at the end of shelf life when the citrus was stored at 4℃ for 40 days in the experiment. Do different storage temperatures affect the probability of cold damage? Will this have an impact on the author's research?
Response: In the introduction, it is mentioned that the chilling injury occurred at the end of the shelf life when the citrus was stored at 2℃ for 40 days [2] and in our study at 4°C 40 days the chilling injury was also presented in the shelf-life period. That is, there will be no differences in the period of occurrence of chilling injury in the two studies, and the 'Arrayana' mandarin is sensitive to chilling injury even at 4°C, as presented in the first paragraph of the discussion.
- The authors only tested the physical and biochemical characteristics of citrus in three time periods, especially in the display in Figure 4. The data sample size is too small.
Response: The authors appreciate the suggestion because in several studies a greater number of samplings have been carried out during the experimentation, however, we reviewed it in detail and decided to only carry out the evaluations in the three periods mentioned in the document to optimize resources, but also because the mandarin is a non-climacteric fruit and, for this reason, the changes in respiration and other physicochemical parameters are not very noticeable. Thus, the measurement at the end of storage may be sufficient to determine the effect of the treatments during cold storage, and the last measurement in the experiment is a good indicator of response in the shelf-life period, after leaving the fruits at room temperature, as reported by Zacarias-García et al. (2023, https://doi.org/10.1016j.postharvbio.2023.112303) for most of the parameters evaluated by us.
- Citrus brown spot is related to the proportion of gas in the air. Did the authors consider the effect of the ratio of oxygen and carbon dioxide on the experimental error?
Response: We found the suggestion very important and proceeded to search for studies on this topic. The documents consulted agree that the mentioned symptoms can manifest when the fruits were stored in atmospheres with low oxygen (approx. 5%) and high carbon dioxide (approx. 5%). However, we did not modify the storage atmosphere because we put fruit on plastic trays inside the cold room.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear author,
This work is well-written and the science is sound fine. However, the author has some questions to give a more detailed discussion.
1) Why did the author use 40 days at 4oC and what are the criteria for selecting more than 7 days at 19 oC?
2) 5 mg/L and 10 mg/L came from? what are the criteria for selecting this range of concentration?
3) Which one is the best antioxidant properties and why? because all of the samples showed that the DPPH scavenging capacity was lower than 40%.
Author Response
The authors thank you for your important concept about our manuscript and for the important suggestions, which were considered and have improved the quality of our document.
Reviewer 2
- Why did the author use 40 days at 4°C and what are the criteria for selecting more than 7 days at 19 °C?
Response: We base the storage period and shelf-life on the recommendations of Balaguera-López et al. (2019) for 'Arrayana' mandarin, and we decided to evaluate 4°C because the costs of the refrigeration system at a commercial level can be cheaper than at 2°C. Additionally, 40 days is a long storage period that guarantees: (1) enough time for the export process, (2) it is a time that allows the fruit to be stored to find better marketing opportunities when the price is not favorable, and ( 3) this storage condition potentially generates chilling injury and requires the use of technologies to alleviate them. In the shelf-life, the recommendation of 19°C is followed because it is the ambient temperature of our conditions, and 7 days because at this time the presence or absence of chilling injury is evident.
Based on this suggestion, we include the reference by Balaguera-López et al. [2] to clarify the aspects mentioned above.
- 5 mg/L and 10 mg/L came from? What are the criteria for selecting this range of concentration?
Response: In the methodology we cite the studies on which we rely for the doses of the 24-epibrasinolide analogue. For the DI-31 analogue, we did not find recommended doses for postharvest, therefore, we decided to use the same doses as the other analogue and increase its concentration to characterize the effect of the spirostanic analogue.
- Which one is the best antioxidant properties and why? because all of the samples showed that the DPPH scavenging capacity was lower than 40%.
Response: Correction was made
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Well done
