Reaction of Mandarins to the Alternaria Brown Spot and Huanglongbing: Identification of Potential Varieties for These Diseases to Be Managed in the Field
, Mariangela Cristofani-Yaly 1, Rodrigo do Vale Ferreira 1, Eduardo Sanches Stuchi 2 and Fernando Alves de Azevedo 1,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The work entitled “Reaction of mandarins to Alternaria brown spot and huanglongbing: identification of potential varieties for these diseases management in the field” showed the incidence and severity of both diseases on a range of genotypes that could be tolerant to replace the current commercial varieties.
The work allows the evaluation of many different varieties against both ABS and HLB in order to determine if there are tolerant varieties to them and to be able to cultivate those that best resist.
The results are mostly based on studies of the area under the disease progress curve (AUDPC) by the trapezoidal integration method and PCA.
The only point that is not clear to me is Table 1 in the Fruit quality and CLas detection through qP section. I don't understand what each of the three rows in each genotype means.
The discussion of the results obtained with respect to HLB is somewhat poor and diffuse. It would be good to go deeper into this aspect, particularly when the results indicate that there are no tolerant varieties.
Minor editing of English language required
Author Response
Dear reviewer, Initially, we would like to thank the valuable contributions of the Horticulturae reviewers. All suggestions were very pertinent and contributed to make our manuscript more impactful. Thus, all suggestions were accepted. We highlight that we inserted 8 new and recent references, which allowed us to better discuss our results. In addition, supplementary material was also added with a summary of the results of all evaluated genotypes. We performed a profound correction of English and chose to make visible all the corrections and insertions made in the new version of the manuscript. Best Regards. AuthorsAuthor Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The subject of the manuscript «Reaction of mandarins to alternaria brown spot and huanglongbing: identification of potential varieties for these diseases management in the field» and its aim seem relevant to me. Food security and the diseases control in agriculture, as a rule, arouses keen interest among both academic researchers and agricultural enterprises. The design of the study, the sample size of genotypes, long-term observations, data analysis create a favorable impression of the work. However, the presentation of the results and their discussion could be significantly improved. Here are some thoughts on this.
1.Neither in the introduction nor in the discussion of the results does it discuss whether the previous selection of tangerines was successful in resistance to alternaria brown spot and huanglongbing. What new things have you discovered compared to previous studies? Have previously untested genotypes been studied? Has the original ancestral tolerant genotype been found? Have previously overlooked patterns been discovered?
2.The data has been heavily generalized to create figures. I think it will be interesting for the readers of the article to get acquainted with the initial data on incident and severity for each plant variety. They can be added as another table in supplementary materials or as a link if they are freely available.
3.In 3.1. Alternaria brown spot (ABS) severity and incident, emphasis is placed on disease-sensitive genotypes. There is a lack of description of disease-resistant genotypes. Even their names are not visible in the Figure2.
4.The «Fruit quality and CLas detection through qPCR» discussion is too short (line 313). The statement that the disease worsens the quality of fruits is banal. It is unclear how the titer of the pathogen correlates with the quality of fruits and HLB symptoms.
5.It is better to specify the conclusion by adding the number of disease-resistant genotypes in specific groups of citrus fruits. You can add the names of genotypes or groups of genotypes that the authors consider promising for breeding.
6.The text of the article needs editing. A few examples.
Line 191.The instructions for the authors have not been removed.
Line 238. juice yield (JY)
Line 213. «This component positively correlated (r = 0.746) with HLB incidence and severity». Write which of the principal components correlates. Is the correlation coefficient the same for incident and severity?
Line 231. «After the HLB incidence assessments, in the 2019 harvest, four varieties with contrasting severity levels were selected and evaluated for the influence of the presence of the pathogen on fruit quality». Confirm contrasting severity levels with numeric values.
Author Response
Dear reviewer, Initially, we would like to thank the valuable contributions of the Horticulturae reviewers. All suggestions were very pertinent and contributed to make our manuscript more impactful. Thus, all suggestions were accepted. We highlight that we inserted 8 new and recent references, which allowed us to better discuss our results. In addition, supplementary material was also added with a summary of the results of all evaluated genotypes. We performed a profound correction of English and chose to make visible all the corrections and insertions made in the new version of the manuscript. Best Regards. AuthorsAuthor Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors, I agree with the improved version of the manuscript.
