Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This research investigated the effect of continuous ozone treatment on the decay of blueberries during storage. To highlight the excellent performance of continuour ozone treatment, three other sterilization methods were conducted as control. However, the organization of the manuscript is confusing, especically for the section of Materials and Methods and Result. This directly affected the readability of the manuscript. Why not compare these four treatments simultaneously? How to determine all the treatment conditions in this research, for instance the ozone concentration and durantion? Have you ever conducted any optimization experiment? Or referred to any previous research? Additionally, as shown in Fig.1, three other methods were selected for comparision. However, the blueberries were piled up in significantly different patterns. How do you assess the possible interference of squeezing during treatment on the sterilization effect? Moreover, why not choose a more intuitive form of data statistical analysis method? Clear result presentation is helpful for readers to understand. More importantly, the discussion must be improved, not only focusing on the effects of continous ozone treatment, but also exploring the possible mechanism for blueberries preservation, as well as emphasizing the innovation and importance of your work.

Author Response

Reviewer 1 Comments

This research investigated the effect of continuous ozone treatment on the decay of blueberries during storage. To highlight the excellent performance of continuour ozone treatment, three other sterilization methods were conducted as control. However, the organization of the manuscript is confusing, especically for the section of Materials and Methods and Result. This directly affected the readability of the manuscript.

>> Thank you very much for your consideration, and we really appreciate the comments and have learned a lot. Appropriate changes were made and highlighted in the revised manuscript according to the suggestions of reviewers. We agreed with the comment. We rephrased materials and methods from Line 92 to 112.

 

Why not compare these four treatments simultaneously?

>>First, we carried out various sterilization treatments using excimer lamps, aiming to find a treatment suitable for blueberries. As a result, ozone gas was found to be effective, but since bacteria would eventually increase if it was only pre-storage treatment, we tested the effect of continuous ozone treatment with the aim of longer storage, so we did not carry out both treatments at the same time. In the future, we plan to combine pre-storage treatment and treatment during storage, aiming for even longer storage periods.

 

How to determine all the treatment conditions in this research, for instance the ozone concentration and durantion? Have you ever conducted any optimization experiment? Or referred to any previous research?

>>We rephrased materials and methods from Line 92 to 112.  And we add to a reference about the stable condition of ozone gas treatment in previous study at Line 104-106 and 110-112.

 

Additionally, as shown in Fig.1, three other methods were selected for comparision. However, the blueberries were piled up in significantly different patterns. How do you assess the possible interference of squeezing during treatment on the sterilization effect?

>> Since the pre-storage treatment lasted a maximum of about 2 hours, it is believed that the impact of the fruit's own weight is small. In addition, no crushed fruit was found, and the fruit was properly selected, so we believe that there is no problem.

 

Moreover, why not choose a more intuitive form of data statistical analysis method? Clear result presentation is helpful for readers to understand.

>> In this study, we conducted ANOVA in statistical analysis. In ANOVA, the data is assumed to have an equal variance. The rate data sometime does not show equal variance, when the average is near to 0 and/or 1. Therefore, it is generally to conduct the arcsine transformation (or Box-cox transformation) before analysis. We add explanations from Line195 to 198.

 

More importantly, the discussion must be improved, not only focusing on the effects of continous ozone treatment, but also exploring the possible mechanism for blueberries preservation, as well as emphasizing the innovation and importance of your work.

>>We added the purpose and prospects of this paper at the end of the introduction.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

General Comments:

Dear Editor, thanks for the invitation to review the MS. The MS used Excimer lamp sterilization to prolong the storability of blueberry. The research gap is limited and unclear, the authors did little to demonstrate the gap/novelty and justify the study. I suggest authors rework the introduction part, especially the flow/logic, must be very clear for the readers to follow. First, the justification for blueberry is okay. However, from the second paragraph, there is lot of confusing sentence/s. Also, the engineering part of the work is not coming out very strongly, I suggest the authors beef this up, by indicating what is this excimer lamp, how does it work, where did it work and why industries/researchers should work on it. What’s significant about it compared to other postharvest treatments or sterilizations.

 

Title: The title suggest that you investigated/introduced one postharvest technology (UV), but the objectives and methodology contradict this as you have UV and ozone. This needs to be looked at and rephrased.

 

Introduction

• Line 44-45 must be deleted as it does not link well with the next line/paragraph.
• Line 59-60, above you indicated the fungal pathogens are the major, causing the fruit deterioration, now there gap on bacterial, not fungi.
• Line 61-62, the section is introduction/background, therefore, this line should be hypothesis or objective…That’s is, you tested whether UV-lamp can prolong blueberry without affecting the quality, the results section will indicate if this was achieved. So rephrase this line.
• Line 68-71, the study has one aim (expected outcome) and probably two objectives (how the outcome will be achieved).This must be rephrased…Also, the two objectives must be justified above so that its clear that you had two objectives and why.
• Why did the experiment not have the positive control; fungicides/bactericides?
• Line 107. Did you inoculate these pathogens?
• Line 189, why did you transform the data and why different methods of transformation. This must be clear for repeatability.
•  

Materials and methods

• Line 77-78, what was the maturity stage of the fruit, which variables were used to determine the harvest maturity?
• Line 84-88, please provide a citation for the reference on why such conditions.
• Line 91-92, please provide a citation.
•  

Discussion

• Line 304, this is not true, the authors must remember that ozone is used as sterilizer, technology for postharvest pathology, not biology (physiology). Therefore, it is not expected that ozone reduce weight loss, but ozone reduce produce decay, thus lowering weight loss. Even in the background, the confusing of the role of the ozone or UV is there, especially in the last paragraph.
• Line 312-313, which enzymes and how?
• Line 321-323, this inference is not entirely correct, otherwise, refer us to day 0 data for this. Like I said above, ozone is not used to control weight loss. Probably, the pathogens did not really affect the fruit, hence your findings.

 

Author Response

Reviewer 2 Comments and Suggestions for Authors

General Comments:

The MS used Excimer lamp sterilization to prolong the storability of blueberry. The research gap is limited and unclear, the authors did little to demonstrate the gap/novelty and justify the study. I suggest authors rework the introduction part, especially the flow/logic, must be very clear for the readers to follow. First, the justification for blueberry is okay. However, from the second paragraph, there is lot of confusing sentence/s. Also, the engineering part of the work is not coming out very strongly, I suggest the authors beef this up, by indicating what is this excimer lamp, how does it work, where did it work and why industries/researchers should work on it. What’s significant about it compared to other postharvest treatments or sterilizations.

>> Thank you very much for your consideration, and we really appreciate the comments and have learned a lot. Appropriate changes were made and highlighted in the revised manuscript according to the suggestions of reviewers. We add to the introduction from Line 57 to 64. And we rephrased at Line 66 to 67.

 

Title: The title suggest that you investigated/introduced one postharvest technology (UV), but the objectives and methodology contradict this as you have UV and ozone. This needs to be looked at and rephrased.

>>We reconsidered the title. If we misunderstand your suggestion, could you please give us some advice?

 

Introduction

 

Line 44-45 must be deleted as it does not link well with the next line/paragraph.

>>We rephrased at Line 39-40.

 

Line 59-60, above you indicated the fungal pathogens are the major, causing the fruit deterioration, now there gap on bacterial, not fungi.

>>We deleted that part because it may be misleading to readers.

Line 61-62, the section is introduction/background, therefore, this line should be hypothesis or objective…That’s is, you tested whether UV-lamp can prolong blueberry without affecting the quality, the results section will indicate if this was achieved. So rephrase this line.

>>We rephrased at Line 57 to 64.

 

Line 68-71, the study has one aim (expected outcome) and probably two objectives (how the outcome will be achieved).This must be rephrased…Also, the two objectives must be justified above so that its clear that you had two objectives and why.

>> We rephrased at Line 74 to 78.

 

Why did the experiment not have the positive control; fungicides/bactericides?

Line 107. Did you inoculate these pathogens?

>> In this study, the aim is to reveal the effectiveness of ozone and/or UV treatment in storage of blueberries. In Japan, blueberries are not any sterilization treatment before storage, generally. The effects of some fungicides on storability of blueberries has not been investigated. Therefore, we did not conduct fungicide as a positive control.

 

Line 189, why did you transform the data and why different methods of transformation. This must be clear for repeatability.

>> In this study, we conducted ANOVA in statistical analysis. In ANOVA, the data is assumed to have an equal variance. The rate data sometime does not show equal variance, when the average is near to 0 and/or 1. Therefore, it is generally to conduct the arcsine transformation (or Box-cox transformation) before analysis. We add explanations from Line 195 to 198.

 

Materials and methods

Line 77-78, what was the maturity stage of the fruit, which variables were used to determine the harvest maturity?

>>>>Added information on the maturity stage of harvested blueberries (Linw 85-86).

 

Line 84-88, please provide a citation for the reference on why such conditions.

Line 91-92, please provide a citation.

>>We rephrased materials and methods from Line 92 to 112. And we add to a reference about the stable condition of ozone gas treatment in previous study at Line 104-106 and 110-112.

 

Discussion

 

Line 304, this is not true, the authors must remember that ozone is used as sterilizer, technology for postharvest pathology, not biology (physiology). Therefore, it is not expected that ozone reduce weight loss, but ozone reduce produce decay, thus lowering weight loss. Even in the background, the confusing of the role of the ozone or UV is there, especially in the last paragraph.

>>We rephrased from Line 311 to 314.

 

 

Line 312-313, which enzymes and how?

>>Because the mechanism for that was not revealed, we deleted that part.

 

Line 321-323, this inference is not entirely correct, otherwise, refer us to day 0 data for this. Like I said above, ozone is not used to control weight loss. Probably, the pathogens did not really affect the fruit, hence your findings.

>>We deleted that part because it may be misleading to readers.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have substantially revised the manuscript, and the quality and readability of the article have significantly improved. I think it can be considered for publication.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Thank you for your efforts in reviewing our paper.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear editor, 

 

The MS reads better though the language can be improved 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Thank you for your efforts in reviewing our paper.