Propagation of Jasminum parkeri: A Critically Endangered Wild Ornamental Woody Shrub from Western Himalaya
, Anjali Chandel 1, Diksha Sharma 1, Sonali Bhardwaj 1 and Bhavya Bhargava 1,2,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I find the manuscript submitted for review interesting and well thought out. Abstract and Material and method is unqualified. Key words are well-chosen. The introduction is nice and succinct. The conclusions are very clear and references enough and well selected. The results and Conclusion should be improved. In Conclusion the most important recommendations should be given.
Some of the comments I included in the text.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Reviewer 2 Report
The object of research and the subject of research work is very important and interesting.However, the article needs to be corrected and supplemented, especially with regard to the presentation of the results, their explanation and consequent improvement of the discussion, conclusions and summary. Detailed comments are given below.
Introduction
line 39 - commonly instead Commonly .... and dwarf intead Dwarf
line 46 - should be a.s.l or AMSL instead amsl
line 55 - ex-situ should be in Italics
Materials and Methods
line 71 - a.s.l. or AMSL
line 72-74 - temperature values should be given in reverse for maximum and minimum
line 74 - should be fan intead Fan; pad system should be more explain in details
line 86 - I suggest changing the word "portion" to "part" (here and similarly in other places)
line 91-92 - the pots seems to be too large for cuttings. Could you explain the reason for using this pot size?
line 108 - ... the number of PLANTS (not pots) that flowered; "visual" seems to be better word intead "ocular".
line 111 - "experiment" instead of "experimanetal"
2.6. Data Analysis - It seems to be necessity to use Bliss transformation for percentage data. Could you explain the situation? You write that "in some cases possible trends in results (where 0.05 ≤ p ≥ 0.01) are also descibed". However, I did not find clear descriptions of such trends in the chapter Results.
3.1. Rooting response of stem cuttings - please put space after value and ppm in all sub-chapter.
Interpretation of results based on statistical analysis is sometimes incorrect, e.g.
line 124 - "The highest rooting percentage ...." Not "the highest" but higher only than control and NAA treatment at 1000 ppm level and IBA treatment at 1000 ppm.
line - 131 - "the minimum percentage of rooting (85%) [...] were observed in cuttings of control." In true (according statistical analysis) this value is not differ from all other. excluding value in treatment with NAA 3000 ppm.
3.2. Shoot formation in rooted cuttings - Interpretation of results based on statistical analysis is sometimes incorrect, e.g.
line 138-139 - "The number of leaves in treated cuttings was significantly higher (p ≤ 0.05) than control" - only in the case of IBA 2000 ppm and IAA 2000 ppm treatments
line 144-146 - This sentence should be moved to previous sub-chapter
line 153 - better to use "visual" instead of "ocular"
Figure 2. beter to use "during" instead of "in propagation"
Figure 5. The letter markings of the graphs are confused (acc. text): A should be C and C should be A. In addition, the graphs are very small and not readable.
Figure 6. The graph is unclear and should be changed. Number of plants is maximum 30 (becouse n=30), in this situation vlaue 35 plants on the scale is unnecessary. Weeks on horizontal scale are related to 2019 year (63 week = October 2019, but week 63 ≠ October 2020), so you could propose other explanation on this scale or put clearly year for cuttings and year for seeds on the graph, or give other clear explanation.
Discussion, Conclusions and summary as well should corrected according corrected results.
References:
Latin names in article's titles should be write in Italics. It would be good to supplement the list of literature (and manuscript) with a few newer items. Most of the cited works are older than 10 years.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors.
Thank you very much for your further improvement of the manuscript and for all answers.
The manuscript has been really improved. However, in my opinion, Authors have still some difficulties in correctly interpreting the results obtained according to the statistical analysis performed. I have made some specific comments to further improve the interpretation of the results in the notes to authors.
Once the description of the results has been corrected, the abstract should be revised accordingly and other references to the results in the Discussion and Conclusion sections should be carefully reviewed.
In my opinion, unfortunatelly, you still have some difficulties in correctly interpreting the results obtained according to the statistical analysis performed. In details:
Line 117-123 - 2.6 Data Analysis
You wrote in response that "The data analysis section has been revised and rewritten by incorporation of Bliss transformation for percentage data, as suggested." The figures for the percentages are still the same. Does this mean that the Bliss transformation has been applied before? (In a previous version of the manuscript?). Regardless of the answer to the above question, information about the use of the transformed data should be included in the text.
You also wrote that "Duncan’s multiple range tests (DMRT) were implemented for the comparison of mean values". Did the previous version incorrectly state the statistical test used, or has a new analysis now been done using a different test to compare means? This is because the letter designations in the graphs (which tell us the differences between the means) are identical to those in the previous version of the manuscript.
3.1 Rooting response of stem cuttings
line 129 - it's not proper interpretation concerning rooting percentage, what confirm the next sentence. Personally, I see the effect.
line 130-132 - ...."as compare to control (85.00%)" AND TREATMENT WITH IBA AND NAA AT 1000 PPM.
line 135 - I suggest to change the beginning of the sentence to "The largest" intead "The maximum".
line 136 - "[...] as compared to cotrol (8.10)" is not proper interpretation. it should be ... "as compared to the number of roots in control and all treatments with PGRs."
line 139 - "[...] at par with treatment IBA (3000 ppm, 91.67)." I true not only with results in this treatment. Please add to this sentence information about the results obtained in other treatments that are in the same homogeneous group (with a "d").
3.2 Shoot formation in rooted cuttings
The third sentence contradicts the second.
line 147-148 - please change "The maximum" in "Higher" and add "and IBA (2000 ppm)" after "IAA (2000 ppm).
Figure 3 - Graphs not well readable due to poor font quality in descriptions.
Once the description of the results has been corrected, the abstract should be revised accordingly and other references to the results in the Discussion and Conclusion sections should be carefully reviewed.
Author Response
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