Assessment of Elongation of the Mesocotyl-Coleoptile and Biomass in Parents and Crosses of Corn Seedlings of the High Valleys of Mexico

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Deep sowing is an agricultural practice commonly used in high altitudes or in drier habitats. Its implementation is based primarily on the seed size and the capacity of the seedling in seed germination.  This article analyzed the elongation of the mesocotyl, coleoptile and other seedling traits from16 hybrids of two seed sizes, five varieties. The results find the seed size significantly affected the speed and percentage of emergence, elongation of the mesocotyl-coleoptile, and production of dry matter, both in parents and in their crosses.  This article has some innovation, the experiment designed very good. However, the language is not very good, I feel embrassed to understand it. By the way, there are 9 tables  but not figures in this article. I strongly suggest the figures are introduced.

Need to revise it.

Author Response

Consulte el archivo adjunto

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

MS is poorly written, scientifically unsound and is often hard to understand. The MS is full of typos, syntax and grammatical errors. MS is unstructured and unorganized. A clear rationale/hypothesis is missing. Conclusions are vague. The rationale of including the 16 hybrids and 5 varieties. Please explain the criteria of selecting a particular variety as a control.

L36-‘The mesocotyl has bark, epidermis and a central vascular stele, with a meristem zone on the superior part’ is scientifically unsound; maize mesocotyl doesn’t have ‘bark’ What is the ‘superior part’?

L39-41-Therefore, the varieties with long mesocotyls could be used to partially surpass the establishments faced by direct and deep sowing [2].

L52-Its implementation is based primarily in sowing large seed and in the capacity of the seedling to take advantage of a greater area of exploration of residual moisture in the soil [1]??

L58-This approach was used during years to characterize different traits of the aerial system and growth habits

L59-The traits of the organs that grow under the soil surface have been used as possible selection markers [1].

L75-sample of corns liberated for High Valleys of Mexico’

Everyday data on ambient and soil temperatures, soil moisture, and relative humidity should be provided for each season.

Data should be presented in graphical form.

Poor English writing with several typos and syntax errors. The MS in its current form is hard to read and understand.

Author Response

Consulte el archivo adjunto

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors, This manuscript describes a large set of data that you have obtained on hybrids, varieties and F1 seedlings of corn. Your main result confirms the data of other authors that the length of mesocotyl determines the germination of corn seeds. You have found maize genotypes with increased mesocotyl and get F1 from their crossing. So the results of your work may be interesting to breeders. However, there are several flaws in your research. The introduction needs to be expanded. You should add the information about genes involved in mesocotyl formation and determining the length of the mesocotyl and how these quantitative traits are inherited. It is problematic to compare the results of the first and second stages, when you germinated large seeds in the first period, and small ones in the second. The periods of seed germination differed in temperature, as you indicated, as well as in the length of the day and the spectral composition of the light, which you did not write about. Light is an important factor in seed germination and seedling formation through phytochrome regulation. The results obtained for large and small seeds in the first and second stages, therefore, were not compared correctly. There is no visualization of your results. The tables are very large and hard to read. It would probably be appropriate to process a large number of results additionally using multivariate statistics methods. The results of such processing could be visualized. What the novelty of your research is? According to the cited literature, the relationship between the length of the mesocotyl and the success of germination and growth of seedlings has already been described. At the end of the Conclusion, I would like to see recommendations for breeders and prospects for using the results. The manuscript cannot be published in present form. Significant improvement required.

English needs to be corrected. Many parts of the text are not clear due to poor wording and very long sentences (lines 228-235; 306-318; 355-361, etc.). Grammar required to be improved.

Author Response

Consulte el archivo adjunto

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Though the Authors have improved on the last version. MS is still in very bad shape. The English and Scientific writing is bad with poor organization of data/Figures. Some examples of wrong English are: L41’ partially exceed the establishments’; L355 ‘is, the lowest SE was seemingly motivated by the cold’

Figure legends need to be explained in more detail. Errors bars are missing from the graphs.

Table 3 for Pearson’s correlation should be converted to a plot.

Result heads should be defined properly and should be self-explanatory.

Table 5 is difficult to comprehend and therefore should be made into a graph for each parameter

I suggest the Authors move most of the prescreening graphs to Supplementary data and only keep the significant one in the main Figures.

The English and Scientific writing is bad with poor organization of data/Figures. Some examples of wrong English are: L41’ partially exceed the establishments’; L355 ‘is, the lowest SE was seemingly motivated by the cold’

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

Thank you for the improvement of the manuscript.

However, there are issues with the presentation of materials.

Figure 9-12 shows discrete data on the mass and size of organs. You cannot line up this data. They should be presented in the form of histograms. A line or graph is not acceptable in this case.

I am still confused that you are comparing data obtained in the summer-autumn and spring-summer periods. Please, discuss the data obtained in different seasons more convincingly. Шt is necessary to add considerations about the role of light in seed germination, to characterize the length of the day and the spectral composition of ыгтlight in two different periods of seed germination experiments.

Minor revisions are needed.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf