Influence of Solution Combination for Postharvest Treatment Stage on Vase Life of Cut Hydrangea Flowers (Hydrangea macrophylla cv. ‘Verena’)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Results

The legend of all Figures and Tables should be shelf explanatory. Please explain what does TW, CPIII, SHQC in Figure 1 mean and respectively in all others Figures and Tables. Also information about treatment combination should be added. Please change all legends in all figures and tables.

Why Authors didn’t put the figures chronologically? There are Figure 1, 2, 5, 3… The same with Tables.

Figure 5 is not readable. It is hard to see the differences between treatments.

Discussion

The discussion paragraph is one of the most important in a scientific publication and should be of the highest standard. The discussion in its current form is unacceptable. Authors should carefully discuss their results with the results obtained by other authors. The authors should analyze the obtained results in more detail and explain why such changes occurred.

Asrar (2012)[13] – (2012) should be deleted.

There are lack of conclusions in MS text.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript titled, “Comparison of Vase Life on Treatments with Combinations of Postharvest Solutions of Cut Hydrangea Flowers (Hydrangea macrophylla cv. ‘Verena’) in Distribution Stage” compares vase-life performance of a bigleaf hydrangea cultivar using a variety of postharvest treatment combinations.  However, I cannot edit because there are no line numbers. Please provide an original manuscript of proof with line numbers in the future. It is unclear what the treatments were, when they were applied, and if the statistics were suitable for the data. Comments by section number are below.

Section 1

The authors claim that the amount and effect of disinfectants depends on cultivar, but only one cultivar is used in this study. The use of only one cultivar limits the usefulness of the study.

Page 2, end of second paragraph talks about the use of “farmhouses”. Surely the authors meant to use a different word here.

The study is set up in a way that overall effects of tested pretreatments, transport solutions, and preservatives cannot be determined.

Section 2.1

Section 2.1 mentions “cultivars” used in the experiment, but only one cultivar is used.

How long were cut flowers pretreated at 4C?

Section 2.2

There are at least four types of solutions mentioned: holding, pretreatment, postharvest, and transport. It is not clear to the reader, here and throughout the manuscript, which solution is being discussed. Also the intro discusses disinfectants and preservatives. Is one of these solutions a disinfectant? The authors should choose one term for each solution and use it exclusively throughout the manuscript.

The authors mention “comparison by holding solution treatment”, and later “comparison treatments with combinations of postharvest solutions”. It is unclear what the authors mean here, as there is no way to individually parse the effects of tested pretreatments, transport solutions, and holding solutions.

“The pretreatment was immersed in the pretreatment solution” is not clear. What does this mean?

If holding solution is the final step, why is it mentioned first here? That is confusing.

At the beginning of the section, the authors say, “holding solution were used 1% chrysal professional Ⅲ (CPⅢ), 2% sucrose + 250 mg/L 8-hydroxquinoline + 100 mg/L citric acid (SHQC), and tap water (TW) as control.” Later in the section, the authors say, “The holding solution treatment was put in glass bottle (1000 ml) containing 700 ml of holding solution which were CPⅢ and FC.”

Section 2.3

The measurement of transpiration is unclear. The value was obtained “by subtracting the total weight on the day of measurement from the total weight on the previous day”. The total weight of what?

Numbered equations should be presented in the text in the appropriate place.

Section 2.4
Please state clearly what the five treatments were.

Did you check to see if ANOVA assumptions have been met? Please provide results from the heteroskedasticity test of your choice (e.g., Brown-Forsythe).

Section 3.1

Is holding solution the final of the three solutions, or the first one? It seems by the Figure legend that this is the final step, so why is it discussed first?

All figures need attention, here and throughout the manuscript. Figures should stand alone without the reader referring back to the text. Please spell out all abbreviations in the legend in the figure caption for each figure. All figures (a and b) need their own labeled y-axis.

Section 3.2

Figure 5 also refers to “holding solution treatments”, but they are different chemical combinations than those shown in Figure 2. Also, why does it skip from Figure 2 to Figure 5?

It seems like Figure 3 and Table 3 should be discussed before Figure 5, as they report on the same combination of chemicals.

I stopped reviewing here. The authors should take care to clearly state which stage of postharvest treatment they are referring to. Also, it isn’t clear whether “holding solution treatments” refer to the combinations of solutions or the chemicals used exclusively in the “holding” phase. It is not even clear what the “holding” phase is. All of the tables and figures need more explanation in the captions and clearer axis labels.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Review Article    horticulturae-1394542

Comparison of Vase Life on Treatments with Combinations of Postharvest Solutions of Cut Hydrangea Flowers (Hydrangea macrophylla cv. ‘Verena’) in Distribution Stage

The title can be shortened to make it easier for the reader to reach.

Below are suggestions for minor linguistic and substantive changes.

Abstract:

The abstract should be a total of about 200 words maximum. Now is around 50 words too many.

Line before last: pretreatments → pretreatment

very important → essential

Introduction:

Line 2: and also → also

The aim of the study. → we aimed or the aim of the study was/were

The introduction would be worth supplementing with the mechanism of action of individual chemical compounds used in experiment.

 

Materials and methods

First paragraph, Line 5-6: for how long they were pre-treated?

Second paragraph: simplify the first and second sentences, Can present the treatment in points. Now there are unnecessary repetitions. Actually, the entire second paragraph needs to be re-edited.

Paragraph 2.3

compared to  → compared with

Statistics

One flowers?

Results

3.1. The second part of the first sentence, after coma is redundant.

The statement that something has increased sharply cannot be used when analyzing the presented charts, especially since there is talk of changes below 1%. The data should be presented in numerical form in tables and made ANOVA along with the test. Currently, there is no significance of the differences.

3.2

Note similar to above. The graphs illustrate the changes nicely, but there are no differences between the treatment.

3.5

of SHQC → in SHQC

3.6

combination using→  combination with

3.7

in order to→  to

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

There are lack of conclusions in MS text. 

Please add a paragraph including conclusions and further research perspectives.  

Author Response

Thanks to the reviewer. We added a conclusion section to the manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx