Implications of the Symbiotic Nitrogen Fixation in Common Bean under Seasonal Water Stress
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This manuscript aims at assessing the performance of common bean accessions under water deficit stress and at evaluating how this stress affects the symbiotic relationship between the plant and the symbiont Rhizobium.
Despite it is of potential interest to the readers of Agronomy.
In general, I found the paper difficult to read, mostly because the experimental design is not clear and the big amount of analyses performed and data produced contribute to this issue. Furthermore, the manuscript requires a carefully check of English grammar use, as well as for typos.
Here are my general suggestions:
In the abstract there are some aspects that must be clarified soon: the number of accessions, if water stress is assessed independently from symbiotic relationship, and that the experiment are performed in both field and greenhouse conditions.
The introduction can be shortened avoiding repetitious sentences and "jumps" across the two main aspects of the paper: the water deficit tolerance and the symbiotic relationship with Rhizobium. For example, the nitrogen-fixing bacteria are introduced at lines 37-40 in the water deficit paragraph and then discussed extensively from line 67. Furthermore, instead of two "hurry" lines at the end of the introduction stating the goals of the study, some more sentences guiding the reader to the experimental design should be preferred.
Materials and Methods. I found this section very difficult to read. The authors should clearly state what are the main questions and with what kind of experiments and analyses they aim at answering them. For example: water stress experiment: aim / genotypes used (number, characteristics) / where (filed, greenhouse) / analyses.. and so on. Otherwise, the reader perceives a mix of conditions and analyses and misses the points.
Unless the authors are capable of rewriting the results in a more focused and concise way, I suggest to split results and discussion and to leave only the main results. All the other information can go in supplementary material. In this context, tables and figures are not of help in the understanding of results. Tables (e.g. 4, 5, 7 and 8) are too long to be kept in the main text and are better shown as supplementary material; some figures (e.g. fig. 2) are of low quality and impossible to read, with no use to the reader.
I did not go carefully into the discussion because the experimental workflow was not clear to me, but more comparisons with recent literature is needed (I found a few, recurring citations).
Please also check carefully the English grammar use throughout the text. For example:
long sentences (lines 29-30; 50-51...)
improper use of punctuation (lines 36, 40, 51..)
I found several other typos, but at this stage I believe that major revisions are urged before going into details.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This manuscript has very interesting topic.
Furthermore, it seems to have very good results.
However, the experiments do not have replications.
Also, the picture of field trials shows the distance among plot is very close each other.
In this case, I am wondering how authors make sure all 10 stains are not mixed together in the field condition.
Last but not least, there are too many Tables with lots of information.
If possible, I suggest that authors should delete many of those and summarize them in the more simple form so that readers can follow it through easily.
As long as those questions are defended or fixed, I suggest that this manuscript should be considered to be accepted.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I would like to thank the authors for providing this revised and improved version of the manuscript. I appreciate their efforts to shorten the introduction and to rewrite the M&M and Results/Discussion sections. For some reason, a few tracked changes appear in the Introduction, but giving a look at the old version, it seems that several modifications have been carried out. I still believe that a split of Results and Discussion sections would have benefited from the manuscript, but this is a choice of authors. I have just a few edits to suggest and that I would like to see fixed in the final version of the manuscript.
Despite I have carefully read the manuscript, I strongly recommend the authors to check the use of commas and points as well as of verbs and adverbs throughout the manuscript.
line 13 = "PHA-0471, a small seeded genotype, .."
long sentences (e.g. lines 29-30) still appear in this revised version, and I would like to see them cut in order to make reading more fluent.
line 88 = please insert a comme before while
line 90 = please use "consisted of" instead of "was"
line 96 = if you have any information about model/brand of the spectrophotometer please add it for reference and replicability.
line 96-97 = Before replication, ....
line 98 = please replace " so that they " with "to"
line 154-155 = please remove the comma before "were". Furthermore, if the subject is a single interaction, replace "were" with "was"; if it is multiple interactions, please add an "s" for the plural.
line 170 = please add a comma before who
line 179 = I think there is a missing comma after "variability"
line 180 = I guess that you mean "values similar to.."
line 181 =" Nodule formation is a plant-controlled process; therefore,the formation of new nodules in the...."
line 189 = Do you mean "which accounts for the 85%.." insted of " which adjusts to 85% " ?
line 190 = please insert a punctuation mark and start a new sentence "This could be.."
line 191 = "In the case of PMB-0285 and PMB-0286 may be due to an over
192 nodulation" . Where is the subject? Please add "it" or a word as subject.
line 196 = please add a space before <1
line 207 = "this reduction occurs because.." and "can decrease"
line 210 = Please use "shows" instead of "represents"
line 227 = please put a comma before "with" and remove agter "mg"
line 295 = please use "per plant" instead of "plant-1" and insert a comma after nodulation.
line 362 = please replace "theirs" with "its" because the subject is singular
please rephrase at lines 364-367, not clear.
line 399 = "not inoculated". Same at line 416.
line 419 = Please use "shows" instead of "represents"
line 443 = " No rhizobia strain obtains the highest productivity in all genotypes ". Do you mean "None of the rhizobia strains provided the highest..." ?
Author Response
Please see attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
