Breaking Seed Dormancy of Jaltomata procumbens (Cav.) J. L. Gentry Seeds with the Use of KNO3
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript is about breaking seed dormancy using potassium nitrate solution and two soaking times in the seed germination of two J. procumbens populations.
For the most part, it is written well however there is a problem with the figures and graphs that are not visible in the present formatted draft that I am reviewing. My comments to enhance the quality and the scientific soundness of the manuscript is as follow:
Line 2 and 3: Please use uppercase for each word on the title
Line 4 and 5 and 8: Please edit the numbering of affiliations and should be 1 and 2
Line 13: You may mention that the main objective was to break the dormancy of Jaltomata seeds and to achieve that you evaluate the KNO3?!
Line 18: Suggestion: were “measured” or “recorded” instead of “evaluated”!
Line 26: Please use ; instead of , for keywords and delete the . from the end
Line 30: color,
Line 32: at a mature stage
Line 35: in the domestication process presents
Line 36: allow
Line 37: since fast germination
Line 39: Suggestion: maybe use “positively” instead of “in a positive manner”
Line 39: quality, and
Line 44: that presents most of the seeds.
Line 46: stratification, or their
Line 51: for its generalized usage
Line 51: For the recumbent
Line 53: as a germination promoter
Line 58: into an adequate
Line 59: [3,8]
Line 61: requirements because it enhances
Line 65: the light response
Line 70: allows
Line 73: break the dormancy
Line 82 and 90...102....108...133...142: Subtitles should be in italic and each word needs to start with upper case:
2.1. Genetic Material
Line 112: [12,13]
Line 151, 164, and …: all tables heading and figures caption should be in regular, not bold
Figure 1: please edit the figure, in the present form the details are not visible
Line 188: At least in the present draft that I am reviewing figures are kind of hidden and I am not able to provide my comments
Line 197: the population
Line 206: with an RG
Line 214: Tables footnote should not be bold
Line 216: there were no statistical differences
Line 220: DEG, and EP
Line 222: there were no statistical differences
Line 224: " Please edit "with respect to" or "concerning" instead of "respect to"
Figure 3 Again the same problem with 1 and 2 occurs and figures and graphs are partially masked with a white label
Also, the figure caption should not be bold only the figures' labels should be bold. If this is presented as a bar chart I can not see the bars!
Line 249: Please edit as follow:
3.5. Effect of Population and Soaking on Seed Germination
Figures 4 and 5 are not in their place
Line 342: Suggestion: At the end of the discussion or in conclusions you may provide your ideas for the further work that needs to be done and investigated in the future.
Line 344: Differential response
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
We attended almost all observations except line 51 the term “decumbent” was retained since Beentje, H. (2010). The Kew Plant Glossary, an illustrated dictionary of plant terms indicates that it is correct.
Figures 4 and 5 also were modified
Reviewer 2 Report
The goal of this manuscript is to present and discuss the characteristics of dormant Jaltomata procumbens (Cav.) J. L. Gentry seeds germination.
GENERAL COMMENTS:
TITLE
In presents form the paper title is not well stated. In the context of the work, the title should be fully informative.
ABSTRACT and INTRODUCTION
Abstract needs a little improvement (results are described too detailed). The abstract do not characterize the contents of the paper sufficiently (missing background and aims of work). Introduction was well writen, but I have a few objections against its present form. These are listed below:
1. Why do you think that pre-incubation of seeds in KNO3 solution is osmo-priming? In my opinion that the term 'osmo-priming' should be replaced with the word 'soaking'.
2. KNO3 is used to release NO. Introduce and discuss this point.
MATERIAL AND METHODS
Material and research methods are presented appropriately and clearly. Experimental setup and the description in the methods section are well structured, and the statistical analysis is done alright.
RESULTS
Results presented correctly not yet. In the Figs showing seed germination, the SD should be marked. Please replace 'distilled water' with 'control'.
DISCUSSION and CONCLUSIONS
In general, the discussion of the results and conclusions are correct, but not sufficient. The topic was not well discussed. The authors do not make fully use of the literature resources. No conclusions - in its present form this is the abstract.
LITERATURE
The items of literature included in the paper are rather sufficient and adequate to the subject of the paper.
The text of the manuscript is not formatted correctly yet.
Please verify the correctness of the literature and make a linguistic correction of the text by native speaker (extensive editing of English language and style required).
Author Response
All remarks were attended and conclusion was modified in order not to show results again in conclusions.
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper by Flores-Sánchez et al. has clearly benefited from the revision, as advised by reviewers.
