Changes in Agronomic, Antioxidant Compounds, and Morphology Parameters of Green and Red Lettuces (Lactuca sativa L.) by Successive Harvests and UV-B Supplementation
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This study provides insight into the changes in agronomic, antioxidant compounds, and morphological parameters of green and red lettuces (Lactuca sativa L.) by successive harvests and UV-B supplementation. Overall, the authors did substantial work and got lots of data in this work. Surprisingly, “Discussion section” has not been given in the manuscript ? Why? The results section should state the findings of the research without interpretation as the explanation/interpretation of results as a part of ‘discussion section’. The background lines in the abstract could be improved by connecting the enhanced nutritive value of lettuces with the phenolic compounds present in them, which will increase the rationality of the study and clarify the objective as the abstract should stand alone. Also, quantitative information of the results should be provided in the abstract. Comprehensive conclusive statement with the application of current work should be added at the end of abstract. In the introduction section, the novelty is not sufficiently explained. Also, salient objective of your studies is not clear. Plz. Include the information that how many biological and technical replicates have been used?. Conclusion could be elaborated further with future prospective. Many typo errors were also found (e.g., in Line#15: ‘Due this’ should be ‘Due to this’), therefore proofread the whole manuscript very carefully. In material and methods section, the ‘º’ symbol should be replaced with degree sign ‘°’ and some units should be revised for superscripts. Check the expression of Line#119 ‘UV-B treatments were stated applied’. I think the current manuscript should be carefully and extensively revised to meet the standards for publication in ‘Horticulturae’.
Extensive editing of English language is required
Author Response
Dear reviewer
Thank you for your comments. I will address each of them individually. Please find my responses in the attached file.
Best regards.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Main comments:
The topic taken up by the authors is interesting and deserves recognition. The authors investigated the effect of the harvest date, leaf cutting and the effect of ultraviolet lamps on the growth and content of selected metabolites in the leaves of two lettuce cultivars. However, the description of the methodology, especially the results and the data set, should be thoroughly revised before possible publication. There are sentences in the text that are understandable only for the authors. It is not specified in the summary or in the methodology which variety is red-leaved and which is green? The better quality of the manuscript would be to include photos of these lettuces, a comparison of their growth, how they behave after cutting the leaves, etc.
Detailed comments and suggestion:
Abstract:
It should be thoroughly changed, the opening sentence (Line 13-14) seems redundant. The next part is too general and refers only to the content of phenols, and other compounds tested in the experiments, e.g. flavonoid, anthocyanin or proline content, were omitted. The scheme of the two experiments carried out is not given in the abstract.
Introduction
Line 39: lettuce leaves also have other vitamins besides those mentioned in the text.
Materials and Methods:
Line 79: University of Chile.
Line 81: what colour leaves do the tested varieties have?
Line 93: the sentence "with a 10% nitric acid solution to maximize nutrient absorption from the crop" is not understandable, especially since it was previously stated that the medium contains only NH4 ions.
Line 86-98: no time of year, months of experimentation, average temperature under the foil (day/night)
Line 115: What was the intensity of the light from the UV-B lamp? Do the values of 5.2 kJ m-2, and 10.5 kJ m-2 also include the lamp operation time indicated in the description of 30 and 60 minutes?
Results:
The style of the description of the results should be improved, because it is in an unpublished form. Letters indicating significance should be marked accordingly under the table. Abbreviations fully describe.
Line 404: Table 4, 5 and 7. Not specified which date of collection the data using the UV-B lamp come from?
Conclusions:
Too general described and not fully understood without detail.
The vocabulary is correct, however the style of the language should be improved
Author Response
Dear reviewer
Thank you for your comments. I will address each of them individually. Please find my responses in the attached file.
Best regards.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
In general, the work is done by routine and archaic spectrophotometric methods, the error of which is very high. In addition, only the total content of phenols is estimated, even without analysing them by groups, not to mention individual substances. Not all phenolic compounds are nutritionally valuable, so it is a pity that the authors have made such a limited analysis of phenols.
Most incomprehensible is why UV was chosen, and at a stressful dosage. Not only UV, but also blue light is known to lead to the accumulation of anthocyanins and phenolic compounds in plants (10.3390/cells11213437). Increasing the blue spectrum is much easier than UV-lighting. In addition, even just the light intensity can lead to changes in the composition of phenolic compounds (10.1016/j.plaphy.2021.07.033; 10.32615/ps.2020.048)
Non-critical remarks include the practical absence of Bar in Figures 1-2, they need to be made clearer and their dimensionality needs to be put in the figure caption.
Thus, it is possible to conclude that the authors' paper, though made by routine methods, and is not of great scientific interest, but after substantial revision, especially in the choice of UV, and addition of data at least by classes of phenolic compounds, probably can be considered further for publication.
Author Response
Dear reviewer
Thank you for your comments. I will address each of them individually. Please find my responses in the attached file.
Best regards.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I appreciate the authors for considering all of my comments. Indeed, the manuscript has improved significantly. However, some changes are still necessary before publication.
The discussion part is weak and not enough literature is cited to elaborate the findings or connect current study with previous ones as it is the basic requirement of this section.For example, under Results and discussion section, subheading 3.1. Effect of successive harvests on green and red lettuces (Experiment 1), only onereference is cited [23]. Do the authors think it is enough to justify all the findings?!
In reference section, some scientific names are not italicised such as, references 7, 11, 40, 42, 45, 47, 50 etc. Please check reference 3 and 5 for necessary corrections. Also, unify the text style and journal name. Fore example, references 8, 10, 35, 46, 49, 52, 53 etc.
Moderate editing of English language is required
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 1
Thank you for your time and feedback.
Please find attached the response addressing each of the comments point by point.
In the provided file, you will find a detailed response to each comment. If you have any further questions or need clarification, please feel free to reach out.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors accepted the comments of the reviewers with understanding and the manuscript, after thorough additions and corrections, deserves to be published.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 2
Thank you for yours comments. We greatly appreciate the reviewer feedback and have taken their comments into careful consideration. We have made comprehensive corrections to the manuscript based on yours suggestions. Thank you for acknowledging the efforts put into improving the manuscript, and we are excited about the opportunity to share our findings with the broader scientific community.
Reviewer 3 Report
I still think the manuscript is one-sided. The authors need to elaborate on the effects of other wavelengths on plant physiology and justify the choice of ultraviolet, just because it does not penetrate into the greenhouse does not mean it will have the greatest effect. Also, the authors need to compare in more detail in the discussion the possible advantages, if any, of ultraviolet over other lighting options from their point of view. As the work is done on a very primitive methodological level, it should be much better discussed and certain points that are of great importance should be stipulated, the authors ignored my comment about classes and individual phenols, the discussion should also disclose this, which phenols specifically respond to UV and which to other wavelengths, whether there are advantages to their work in this way.
Author Response
Dear reviewer 3
Thank you for your valuable feedback. We appreciate your perspective and will take your comments into consideration for further improvement of the manuscript. We understand your concern regarding the need for elaboration on the effects of other wavelengths on plant physiology and justifying the choice of ultraviolet radiation.
In our current study, we focused on investigating the effects of UVB radiation specifically due to its known impact on plant physiology and its relevance to our research objectives. However, we acknowledge that discussing the effects of other wavelengths and comparing them with UVB radiation would provide a more comprehensive understanding of the topic. We will address this in the revised manuscript by including a discussion on the advantages, if any, of ultraviolet radiation compared to other lighting options, based on our findings and perspective.
Once again, we appreciate your input and will ensure that the revised manuscript addresses these points more thoroughly, providing a balanced and comprehensive perspective on the effects of ultraviolet radiation on plant physiology.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
