Efficacy of Eco-Friendly Bio-Pesticides against the Whitefly Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) for Sustainable Eggplant Cultivation in Kebbi State, Nigeria
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsPlease see at the uploaded file
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Please see at the uploaded file
Author Response
Reviewer 1
The manuscript presents the results of an interesting experiment that aims at highlighting, through field trials, the effects of some biopesticides on the population density of the sweetpotato whitefly (Bemisia tabaci) on eggplant. Therefore, the contents of the manuscript are interesting and original. The methodology followed for the experiments is appropriate, but the results are unclearly reported: somewhat convoluted and not exactly easy to understand. The discussion is complete and satisfactory, congruent with the scientific objective of the research and the results it has produced. Finally, the whole article is not written in a perfect English form. Therefore, in my opinion it could be published in Agronomy, but after many adjustments and changes to be made. However, I see appropriate to suggest to the authors some major revisions, which are specified below.
MAIN NOTES
- Lines 2-3: I would delete the brackets before and after Bemisia tabaci and add (Gennadius).
Response: The brackets have been removed and Gennadius added in the revised manuscript
- Lines 3-4: I would delete “Solanum melongena” and add it to the keyword line.
Response: Solanum melongena L. added in the keyword line in the revised manuscript
- Line 24: I would delete “eggplant” and add “Solanum melongena”. It is important to include different words in the title and keywords.
Response: Solanum melongena L. added in the keyword line in the revised manuscript
- Lines 36-40: I would include other publications:
- Hasanuzzaman, A.T.M.; Islam, M.N.; Zhang, Y.; Zhang, C.Y.; Liu, T.X. Leaf morphological characters can be a factor for intravarietal preference of whitefly Bemisia tabaci (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) among eggplant varieties. PLoS ONE 2016, 11, e0153880.
- De Lima Toledo, C.A.; da Silva Ponce, F.; Oliveira, M.D.; Aires, E.S.; Seabra Júnior, S.; Lima, G.P.P.; de Oliveira, R.C. Change in the Physiological and Biochemical Aspects of Tomato Caused by Infestation by Cryptic Species of Bemisia tabaci MED and MEAM1. Insects 2021, 12, 1105.
- Farina A, Barbera AC, Leonardi G, Massimino Cocuzza GE, Suma P, Rapisarda C. Bemisia tabaci (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae): What Relationships with and Morpho-Physiological Effects on the Plants It Develops on? Insects. 2022 Apr 1;13(4):351. doi: 10.3390/insects13040351.
Response: The suggested citations have been added to the revised manuscript
- Line 61: pay attention to the scientific names of species. When mentioning them for the first time in a manuscript, always write the name of the author who described the species. In this case: Xylopia aromatica (Lamarck).
Response: The author's name has been added.
- Line 135: it is necessary to standardize the method of writing numbers, with only numbers or only words.
Response: The number method is adopted throughout the revised manuscript.
- Line 167: I suggest ..from each of the three..
Response: Correction has been incorporated as suggested.
- Line 178: The acronyms “T1, T2, etc.” should also be used throughout the Results section to make the results clearer and more readable.
Response: The acronyms have been prepared as per the suggestion of previous reviewer.
- Lines 184-186: rephrase because there is a statistically significant difference between pre-treatment (a) and 1D (b).
Response: The statement is correct as it relates to 1D after the 1st spray only.
- Lines 200-201: actually, in Table 2 T14 has a greater effect than T12. I think it is convenient to change the term "followed by".
Response: T12 result was replaced with T14 in the revised manuscript. The acronyms have been prepared as per the suggestion of previous reviewer.
- Line 204: the entire table needs to be reorganized; it needs to be made more intuitive.
We cannot make more modifications in the table.
- Lines 214-216: information about the chili extract (20 mL/L) is missing.
Response: Information added in the revised manuscript.
- Lines 224-226: it is necessary to specify the concentrations (T5 and T7?) and to change the order (first 13.8 and then 18.0). In Table 3, 18.0 is present in T4 and not in T5.
Response: The concentrations have been specified and order changed as suggested. The acronyms have been prepared as per the suggestion of previous reviewer.
- Lines 234-236: it is necessary to specify that it is T15.
Response: Corrected effected in the revised manuscript using the suggested acronyms.
- Lines 236-238: it is necessary to specify that it is T4.
Response: The acronyms have been prepared as per the suggestion of previous reviewer.
- Lines 241-242: it is necessary to specify that they are T7 and T5.
Response: The acronyms have been prepared as per the suggestion of previous reviewer.
- Line 249: I suggest adding the word “respectively” after kg/ha.
Response: The word has been added in the revised manuscript.
- Lines 265-266: it is necessary to specify that they are T4 and T5 respectively.
Response: The acronyms have been prepared as per the suggestion of previous reviewer.
- Lines 279-280: it is necessary to specify the treatment "T15" (60mL/L).
Response: The acronyms have been prepared as per the suggestion of previous reviewer.
- Line 282: it is necessary to specify the treatments, because there are various low values in Figure 3 (e.g., T7 (2022), T5 (2023)). Or it might be convenient to add the term “overall”.
Response: The acronyms have been prepared as per the suggestion of previous reviewer.
- Line 294: I would replace the term "during" with "at the end of the experiment".
Response: The word has replaced as suggested.
- Lines 307-310: it is necessary to rephrase this sentence, it is unclear.
Response: The sentence has been revised and clarity improved.
- Line 312: it is necessary to standardize the method of citing publications.
Response: Citation method standardized as recommended.
- Lines 316-319: it is necessary to rephrase this sentence, it is unclear.
Response: The sentence has been revised and clarity improved.
- Line 431: it is necessary to specify more details of the product.
Response: The specific products have been added in the revised manuscript.
- Lines 66-68: rephrase as “Among the main biological-control agents we can mention: parasitoid species such as Tamarixia radiata (Waterston, 1922) (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae) and Diaphorencytus aligarhensis (Shafee, Alan & Argawal, 1975) (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae) [15, 16]”.
Response: These comments are not related to our manuscript.
- Line 78: change “on vector feeding behavior” to “on the vector feeding behavior”.
Response: These comments are not related to our manuscript.
- Line 81: change “the vectors are killed” to “they are killed”.
Response: These comments are not related to our manuscript.
- Lines 276-277: rephrase as “leads to several undesired secondary effects, including the selection of resistant populations to the available chemicals”.
Response: These comments are not related to our manuscript.
- Line 282: complete the name Beauveria bassiana according to the nomenclature code (authors and year of description are needed).
Response: These comments are not related to our manuscript.
- Line 310: complete the name Aphis gossypii according to the nomenclature code (authors and year of description are needed).
Response: These comments are not related to our manuscript.
- Line 319: complete the name Myzus persicae according to the nomenclature code (authors and year of description are needed).
Response: These comments are not related to our manuscript.
- Line 320: complete the name Pandora neoaphidis according to the nomenclature code (authors and year of description are needed).
Response: These comments are not related to our manuscript.
- Lines 353-358: Everything is reported in these lines has been already said previously and seems to be a useless repetition: all these lines could be totally deleted (or, at least, be very sharply reduced).
Response: These comments are not related to our manuscript.
- Line 419: delete “(0, 15, 30, 48, 72, 96, and 120 h)” (it has been already said in line 391; thus, it is a useless repetition).
Response: These numbers are missing in the manuscript.
- Figure 3: in the captions of both part A and part B, change “N°” with N.” and “1°” with “1st”.
Response: Caption missing in the manuscript. These comments are not related to our manuscript.
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsCongratulations! It is an interesting manuscript, since it aims to evaluate the effectiveness of traditional treatments with products of natural origin against Bemisia tabaci, a pest of numerous very important crops worldwide, for which it is necessary to work to develop ecological control strategies. However, it is necessary to clarify the data analysis methodology to improve the understanding of the paper.
Tables and figures. To facilitate reading, it would be advisable, instead of naming the different treatments as T1...T17, to name them with acronyms. For example ChPo20 instead of T1.
Lines 166-168. The number of leaves sampled on each plant is not specified.
Lines 173-174. It is not specified which factors are considered in the ANOVA. Is the block taken into account when performing the ANOVA?. The meaning of the abbreviation DMRTS is not indicated.
Lines 175-177. It indicates how the "reduction" of the population is determined. And in results and discussion it is also written the word "reduction". However this is the formula for Abbot's efficacy (https://doi.org/10.1093/jee/18.2.265a). Since the title of the article is "Efficacy...", I think you should write "efficacy" instead of "reduction". And it should be specified, in relation to the blocks, how this reduction is calculated. Is it calculated for each block?
Lines 183 and others. I don't understand how to express the result of the ANOVA "(CV=9.0, DF=16, P=0.661)". The usual way to report the results of an ANOVA is [F(between groups df, within groups df) = (F ratio value), p = (p value)]
Lines 190-191. I think there is an error in "5th, (CV=16.2, DF=17.8, P=0.046)"
Tables 2, 3 and 4. I advise that instead of "Pretreatments", "1DAS",..., "15DAS", it is clearer if T0 (= time 0) or D0 (=day 0) is used for the pretreatment , and T1,....T15 or D1,...D15 for the other moments. The format of the tables should be improved.
Line 230. The table has been mixed with the text.
Figures 1-3. It must be specified what the error bars correspond to.
Line 307. It says: "... nee leaf...". It should say: "... neem leaf..."
The bibliography format must be thoroughly reviewed. Check the scientific names of the species, there are some that are not written in italics. There are references written in capital letters. There are years that are not in bold. And misspelled scientific names (like on line 59,1 it says "Bemisia Tabaci" instead of Bemisia tabaci").
Best regards
Author Response
Congratulations! It is an interesting manuscript, since it aims to evaluate the effectiveness of traditional treatments with products of natural origin against Bemisia tabaci, a pest of numerous very important crops worldwide, for which it is necessary to work to develop ecological control strategies. However, it is necessary to clarify the data analysis methodology to improve the understanding of the paper.
Tables and figures. To facilitate reading, it would be advisable, instead of naming the different treatments as T1...T17, to name them with acronyms. For example, ChPo20 instead of T1.
Response: We are thankful to you for summarizing our manuscript. Your kind suggestion has been adopted, and corrections have been incorporated in both the tables and figures in the revised manuscript.
Lines 166-168. The number of leaves sampled on each plant is not specified.
Response: Data collection was done from the three leaves (upper, middle, and lower regions) of five randomly selected plants among thirty per plot. It has now been mentioned in the revised manuscript.
Lines 173-174. It is not specified which factors are considered in the ANOVA. Is the block taken into account when performing the ANOVA? The meaning of the abbreviation DMRTS is not indicated.
Response: The biopesticides at different levels (treatments) and the blocks were considered while performing the ANOVA. The full meaning of DMRT (Duncan’s multiple range test) is indicated in the revised manuscript.
Lines 175-177. It indicates how the "reduction" of the population is determined. And in results and discussion it is also written the word "reduction". However, this is the formula for Abbot's efficacy (https://doi.org/10.1093/jee/18.2.265a). Since the title of the article is "Efficacy...", I think you should write "efficacy" instead of "reduction". And it should be specified, in relation to the blocks, how this reduction is calculated. Is it calculated for each block?
Response: Your kind suggestion of using efficacy instead of reduction has been adopted in the revised manuscript. The reduction was calculated from each plot/block as indicated in section 2.5 of the revised manuscript.
Lines 183 and others. I don't understand how to express the result of the ANOVA "(CV=9.0, DF=16, P=0.661)". The usual way to report the results of an ANOVA is [F(between groups df, within groups df) = (F ratio value), p = (p value)]
Response: Correction effected in the revised manuscript.
Lines 190-191. I think there is an error in "5th, (CV=16.2, DF=17.8, P=0.046)"
Response: The correct DF is 16, it has been corrected in the revised manuscript.
Tables 2, 3 and 4. I advise that instead of "Pretreatments", "1DAS”,, "15DAS", it is clearer if T0 (= time 0) or D0 (=day 0) is used for the pretreatment , and T1,....T15 or D1,...D15 for the other moments. The format of the tables should be improved.
Response: D0; D1...D15 is adopted in the tables as recommended as the table was improved.
Line 230. The table has been mixed with the text.
Response: The text has been separated from the table.
Figures 1-3. It must be specified what the error bars correspond to.
Response: The error bars correspond to the standard error of the mean and provide a measure of how much the sample mean is expected to vary from the true population mean.
Line 307. It says: "... nee leaf...". It should say: "... neem leaf..."
Response: The spelling has been corrected.
The bibliography format must be thoroughly reviewed. Check the scientific names of the species, some are not written in italics. There are references written in capital letters. Some years are not in bold. And misspelled scientific names (like on line 59,1 it says "Bemisia Tabaci" instead of Bemisia tabaci").
Response: The reference format has been reviewed and improved in the revised manuscript.
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe development of biopesticides is undoubtedly a topic of great interest currently in agriculture, and in this sense, the topic of the work is relevant and could potentially be useful for farmers. However, I believe that a serious shortcoming of the work is that the treatments used do not have any type of characterization that would ensure the repeatability of the results. To mention an example, for the chili pod extract no physical and chemical characterization is provided, nor is it reported whether it corresponds to a particular variety of chili, what stage of maturation it should have, or if it comes from one or several crops. The above implies that the material used possibly had great heterogeneity. Not having this information makes the replicability of this treatment very difficult. In reality, many different things fit under the name "chili pod extract", and in turn the answer in terms of its effectiveness can be very heterogeneous depending on the material used. This same problem occurs for other treatments, such as cow dung, buttermilk, cow urine, and even neem extract, since no information is provided about its composition or at least some characteristics that allow us to know more specifically the material used in treatments. In summary, the information provided about the treatments is so ambiguous that it is not possible to define with certainty what they consist of, and therefore, the repeatability of the results obtained is not clear.
However, I have attached the document with additional comments, mainly about the experimental design and statistical analysis.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Moderate editing of English language required
Author Response
Reviewer # 3
The development of biopesticides is undoubtedly a topic of great interest currently in agriculture, and in this sense, the topic of the work is relevant and could potentially be useful for farmers. However, I believe that a serious shortcoming of the work is that the treatments used do not have any type of characterization that would ensure the repeatability of the results. To mention an example, for the chili pod extract no physical and chemical characterization is provided, nor is it reported whether it corresponds to a particular variety of chili, what stage of maturation it should have, or if it comes from one or several crops. The above implies that the material used possibly had great heterogeneity. Not having this information makes the replicability of this treatment very difficult. In reality, many different things fit under the name "chili pod extract", and in turn the answer in terms of its effectiveness can be very heterogeneous depending on the material used. This same problem occurs for other treatments, such as cow dung, buttermilk, cow urine, and even neem extract, since no information is provided about its composition or at least some characteristics that allow us to know more specifically the material used in treatments. In summary, the information provided about the treatments is so ambiguous that it is not possible to define with certainty what they consist of, and therefore, the repeatability of the results obtained is not clear.
Response: The information regarding the treatments used in the study has been well explained in the revised manuscript.
However, I have attached the document with additional comments, mainly about the experimental design and statistical analysis.
Instead of taking the information from a reference, the authors should mention the temperature and relative humidity during the experiment, at the site where the study was carried out.
Response: The average temperature and relative humidity as recorded during the study have been used in the revised manuscript.
The whitefly tends to have an aggregate distribution. How did the authors ensure that the population density at the beginning of the experiment was homogeneous throughout the area? If this was not taken into account, the density found in post-treatment counts may be largely determined by heterogeneity between experimental plots at the start of the trial.
Response: Although the whitefly density was statistically similar before the foliar sprays, varying numbers of whiteflies were recorded in the respective plots. The effectiveness of the treatments sprayed was considered by relating the treated plots with the control plots, which recorded the high whitefly counts throughout the data-taking periods.
There are a large number of varieties of chili peppers. Which one did the authors use in the work and how did they ensure the homogeneity of this material? Did the authors make sure to define a state of fruit maturity? Did it come from a single crop?
Response: All the materials used to prepare the treatments were obtained from a single breed of cattle and plant variety as described in section 2.4 of the revised manuscript.
Did the authors carry out some type of physical and chemical characterization of this material? How can they be sure that the result is repeatable if cow dung from different sources is used?
Response: There is no chemical analysis of the materials used. However, the potential bioactive compounds have been sourced from the literature and presented in the discussion section of the revised manuscript.
Did the authors verify compliance with homogeneity of variances and normality of residuals? This is an important step. If so, what tests were used?
Response: While performing the ANOVA, both the homogeneity of variances and normality of residuals were taken into consideration using Bartlett’s and Shapiro-wilk’s tests.
Duncan's Multiple Range Test is too liberal a test to make comparisons with 17 treatments. A more conservative test should be used. For example, Tukey test.
Response: Turkey’s Honest Significant Difference (HSD) was used as recommended.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsI am sorry that along with the revision of your manuscript overlapped, on microsoft word, the revision of another work.
Please see at the uploaded file.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Reviewer 1
REVIEWER’S NOTES The manuscript presents the results of an interesting experiment that aims at highlighting, through field trials, the effects of some biopesticides on the population density of the sweetpotato whitefly (Bemisia tabaci) on eggplant. Therefore, the contents of the manuscript are interesting and original. The methodology followed for the experiments is appropriate and the results are now clearly reported. The discussion is complete and satisfactory, congruent with the scientific objective of the research and the results it has produced. Therefore, in my opinion it could be published in Agronomy.
NOTES 1) Line 3: I would add the brackets before and after Gennadius
Response: We are thankful to you for your positive feedback on our manuscript. Your suggestions has been incorporated in the manuscript. Thank you
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe authors made substantial changes that significantly improved the quality of the text and revised each of the comments and suggestions. Just one additional correction:
Line 185: Change Turkey’s By Tukey's
Author Response
Reviewer 2
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
The authors made substantial changes that significantly improved the quality of the text and revised each of the comments and suggestions. Just one additional correction:
Line 185: Change Turkey’s By Tukey's
Response: Thanks for your comments; we have incorporated in the revised version of the manuscript.
