First Steps towards Pre-Breeding of Sideritis scardica: A Phenotypic, Agronomic, and Phytochemical Profiling Approach

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

Dear Editor,

Thank you for considering me to review the manuscript titled “First steps towards pre-breeding of Sideritis scardica: A pheno- typic, agronomic and phytochemical profiling approach”.

The results are very important in the field of preservation of plant species and increasing their biological productivity.

However, I regret to inform you that the paper is not acceptable for publication in its present form and will require substantial revisions before it can be considered further. In my opinion, some data is missing.

"The publication presents data on aromatic and phenolic compounds present in the clones. However, in my opinion, data regarding the wild-growing Sideritis species from which the seeds originate is missing, which is essential for comparison of differences.

Additionally, it is not clarified how the authors confirmed the structures of hydrocinnamic acids and phenylethanoids, considering their known similar UV spectra."

Also, the results of the qualitative and quantitative analysis of phenolic compounds are not adequately compared to similar studies on clones (https://doi.org/10.3390/plants12132541) or wild-growing species.

 

Line 94: In the Materials and methods please underline the name of the botanist who confirmed the autentification of the species.

 

Line 176 Please write which standards were used for quantification and in which concentration range were constructed calibration curves.

Line 203 p (in p ≤ 0.05) should be in italic.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

I am not fluent in English, but I think it's okay.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments. Attached please find our response

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

please see the attached file with my comments.

The manuscript “First steps towards pre-breeding of Sideritis scardica: A phenotypic, agronomic and phytochemical profiling approach” by Eirini Sarrou, Nektaria Tsivelika, Stefan Martens, Maria Irakli, Fotini Bletsaki, Sarra Broufa, Sampson Panajiotidis, Paschalina Chatzopoulou and Eleni Abraham represents a consistent and thorough study that begins with the collection of seeds from wild growing plants in their natural habitat, the cultivation and evaluation of the resulting individuals in ex situ location, the selection and propagation of three of them, which subsequently stand out as three clones. For the next two years, an experiment is conducted as in the second year these three clones are evaluated according to morphometric and agronomic descriptors, and phytochemical compounds – diverse essential oils, polyphenols flavonoids.

The manuscript can be accepted for publication with minor changes.

Abstract is enough informative.

Comment 1: I suggest to use cross pollination ability instead of hybridization ability (row 109)

Comment 2: Please, mention clearly your study includes one-year evaluation of assessed traits in the three clones.

 

Keywords:

Comment 1: Three of them are repeated in the title.

You may use Mountain tea, leaf, inflorescence, stem, biomass production, volatile and polyphenolic substances

 

Introduction

In this part the necessity of this research is justified and the studies done by other research groups are summarized. It provides sufficient background and includes relevant references.

 

Material and methods

Comment 1: This part is well organized and explains in details the conducted experiments but the years of investigation must be précised. On rows 99 and 104 the authors notice 2015 is the second year and on the row 109 they again mention 2015 year… 

Comment 2: It would be more appropriate if the meteorological conditions for studying period are included in this part in a table or figure. Then those meteorological data which are discussed in the Discussion part will be seen here.

 

Results

This part is well organized, illustrated and provides correct explanations of the experiment results.

Comment 1: (row 320) It would be better to specify that in the essential oil of SID 2 are found 39 compounds (without 2.4 thujadiene, cis verbenol, tr verbenol, p mentha-1.5dien8ol and benzyl benzoate), in SID 3 – 42 (without geranyl p cymene and α-bisabolene) and in SID 1 – 43 (without benzyl benzoate).

 

Discussion

The authors combine and discuss the obtained results with studies by other researchers.

 

Conclusions are according to the results

 

References

In the manuscript there are 54 citations as 11.11% of which are from the last 5 years; 37.04% - during the period 2014-2018; 27.78% from 2009 to 2013; 9.26% - 2004 - 2008; 11.11% from 1994 – 2003; 1.85% from 1984-1993 and 1.85% are more than 40 years. Above 75% of the references are within the last 15 years. The list of references is adequate and properly formatted.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments. Attached please find our response.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf