Yield, Protein Content and Water-Related Physiologies of Spring Wheat Affected by Fertilizer System and Weather Conditions

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I have completed my review and all the changes, comments, hints are included in the manuscript. Unfortunately, I do not recommend the article for publishing as there are too many mistakes. I am very sorry but the level of the manuscript is not sufficient. There are too many English mistakes (grammar and sentence structure). Because of the wordiness, the text of the paper is not readable in the present form.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

I have completed my review and all the changes, comments, hints are included in the manuscript. Unfortunately, I do not recommend the article for publishing as there are too many mistakes. I am very sorry but the level of the manuscript is not sufficient. There are too many English mistakes (grammar and sentence structure). Because of the wordiness, the text of the paper is not readable in the present form.

Author Response

I have completed my review and all the changes, comments, hints are included in the manuscript. Unfortunately, I do not recommend the article for publishing as there are too many mistakes. I am very sorry but the level of the manuscript is not sufficient. There are too many English mistakes (grammar and sentence structure). Because of the wordiness, the text of the paper is not readable in the present form.

Answer:

Dear reviewer,

Thanks for all your recommendations. All the recommendations made by you, from the corrected pdf, have been implemented. We have greatly improved the paper. All improvements (including those of other reviewers) are marked in red. Practically the entire paper was redone in order to better explain our experiment, and the paper to have better accuracy. If you think that further explanations and improvements are needed, please let us know.

Reviewer 2 Report

Review The manuscript needs to improve.

I would like to stress that I support the potential publication of this paper. On the other hand, a few aspects of the manuscript need to be extensively improved. Please improve the English language. I strongly suggest major revisions in the writing with a native English speaker contributing to and reviewing the manuscript before re-submission.

Authors must thoroughly go through the instructions to authors.

Abstract – The scientific problem is not very clear. Moreover, the objectives of the work should also be better defined. The abstract does not include the key message—an explanation of why your findings contribute to the research and practice.

Introduction – This section should be expanded on major issues related to this study (i.e. important environmental factors influencing crop production) including more references. Please clearly establish a niche in this section (what is the gap that your study comes to fill in) and clearly state your research objectives. There is too much irrelevant information that is not related to the goal of this paper.

Also, there is a repetition of similar sentences and there is a lack of systematic, critical assessments of current literature in the introduction. There are many unclear sentences.

The main problem with the paper is that the results presented are unclearly described and much more care must be taken to explain their line of thought and to better motivate the very strong statements made. I suggest finding a colleague with an English-speaking background, to read through the article and highlight to the authors which sentences are unclear and help to reformulate them so that the message comes across clear enough so the point can be made.

Line 31-33 – Please improve your English writing. The sentence is unclear.

Line 33-36 – The sentence is unclear. Botanically, the wheat grain is a caryopsis containing a single true seed defined as a matured ovule. However, researchers use the term grain.

Wheat straw can be eaten by cattle and sheep and can be fed as feed, but the nutritional content of wheat straw nutrition is insufficient.

Line 33-36 – Use the correct terminology (wheat crop).

Line 38-42 – The sentence is very poorly written, unclear, and confusing.

Line 45-51 – The length of the winter wheat vegetation period is about 280 days and it is not suitable for sowing in mountainous regions where winters are long, frosty, and with very low temperatures [18]. In those conditions, it is more suitable to sow spring wheat (March-April) with a shorter vegetation period (100-120 days) [19]. In recent years, breeders managed to create superior varieties of spring wheat that are high-yielding (about 6 t/ha) with a growing period of less than 100 days [20].

Line 57 – Consider using the latest references (23, 24).

Line 58 – What are the technological factors? Sorry, chemical fertilizer is not this factor.

Line 60-61 – Change “those with nitrogen” to “nitrogen fertilizers”.

Line 62-64 – Why are these factors important to your research? This delete.

Line 72 – Ear??? Wheat spike architecture is a key determinant of multiple grain yield components and a detailed examination of spike morphometric traits is beneficial to explain wheat grain yield and the effects of differing agronomy and genetics.

Line 74-79 and line 81 – It should not be in the introduction. This delete.

Materials and Methods – The methodology is not adequate and does not give readers information. In general, this section is not well conceived. First, write the material used and then the methods. Indicate which statistical program and statistical test (t-test, Tukey's test...) were used. Soil information is incomplete. Please provide the chemical composition of the soil because you used fertilizer.

In materials and methods, the authors need to describe and add some analysis. In line 114, the relationship between two variables was determined by the Pearson correlation coefficient. However, they did not explain the methods which data they used, the 2019 or 2020 or the average of the two continuous years.

Consider introducing new parameters. 1. The rainfall use efficiency (RUE) is a quotient between grain yield and total seasonal rainfall. 2. Regression analysis would help to find the trait that most determined the grain yield, or maybe for a better understanding the all relationships. The authors could discuss important correlations extensively and more in-depth. 3. Although climatic conditions are presented in Table 1, consider enhancing the presentation of results by graphically illustrating the relationship between climatic factors and the grain yield (regression).

The authors also need to add biplot analysis, i.e. AMMI or GGE since Genotype x environment interaction is significant for some parameters. By GGE biplot analysis the author could determine which is the best amount of nitrogen fertilizer for what wheat genotype, and also what wheat genotype is suitable for all nitrogen fertilizer.

Line 84 – Change “The placement of the experience was done according to the method of” to “The experiment was conducted in”.

Line 85 – repetitions.

Line 86 – a good

Line 88 – (on the same…

Line 91 – plot was

Line 93 – Delete “is the most important work of wheat care and”.

Line 94 – Change “on the basis of” to “based on”.

Line 99-100 – Very confusing.

Line 108 – were determined

Line 107 – Please see wheat growth stages:

https://www.mississippi-crops.com/2024/02/29/identifying-wheat-growth-stages-using-the-feekes-scale/

Line 111 – Change “b coefficient are” to “the b coefficient is”.

Line 124-153 – It is not well conceived. Move the paragraph to the beginning section because it is research material.

Line 154 – conditions

Line 155 – after???

Results and Discussion – Subtitles are long. The discussion is informative and based on an assumption. This is not a discussion, only results. Please improve the English language while describing your results; the way it is written corresponds to a report rather than a scientific paper. Here again, try to “play” a little bit with the expressions you use. Do not repeat always the same expressions. This lowers the quality of your writing.

Similarly, such as in the introduction, there is a repetition of similar sentences and there is a lack of systematic, critical assessments of the current literature. Please check the whole text carefully. There is no single citation provided in this section. Moreover, there are some serious issues regarding the scientific English language. Moreover, in more than half of these sections, the authors attempt to discuss their important results and the rest is a quotation of literature. Please try to discuss your results in depth and link them with the appropriate literature throughout the whole section.

Unfortunately, your presentation of the results is terrible, confusing, and unscientific.

Be careful of the units you use, not mmolm^-2s^-1, but mmol m^–2 s^–1.

Why did you take the mean So as a control? Why didn't you compare the genotypes?

Line 182 – Change “a very important asset “its higher grain quality” [48,49]” to “a higher grain quality [48,49]”, using the sources published in the past 10 years.

Line 183-186 – Protein accumulation in the wheat grain depends on many factors, such as the wheat species, the variety, the climatic conditions, the natural fertility of the soil, and the doses of nitrogen fertilizers used [50].

Line 191 – Use the reference published in the past 10 years instead of reference 52.

Line 196 – that the protein content

Line 202 – by the nitrogen fertilization

Line 203 – to the data obtained

Line 204 – G factor and to the F x G

Line 205-206 – such as changes in the humidity of the grains during the harvest [59],

Line 210 – and of the interaction

Line 210-211 – Delete the sentence “All the other factors and interactions had a lower influence on it.”

Line 214-218 – Remember, reference always goes at the end of a sentence.

Line 224 – drive

Line 240 – a year

Line 245 – rates in generally

Line 248 – Remember, it is a big mistake to put signs next to the value of the trait when it increases (+0.78 kg hl-1) or decreases (-0.39°C).

Line 251-252 – In relation to what is the grain yield increased? Compare.

Line 259-260 – Change “decreased significantly by -0.39°C, respectively by -0.17 kPa” to “significantly decreases by 0.39°C and 0.17 kPa compared to control, respectively.”.

Line 266 – Again there are issues regarding the scientific English language. It is a problem in this manuscript.

Line 270-271 –Ciprian was the only genotype whose TKW increased significantly by 3.1 g (9.1%) compared to the control.

Line 280-282 – …those obtained for Pădureni and Taisa were statistically confirmed as very significantly negative. This is not true. It is not the negative values of the properties, but the increase and decrease.

Your presentation of the results is confusing and unscientific.

Line 284 – It is a good practice to define the abbreviation/acronym in the figure caption or legend. Add in legend the meaning of the abbreviations (F1..., S0-ct.....). Also, and in all figures.   

Line 285 – The authors mentioned that Results revealed interaction effects of factors on some traits. However, they cannot mention which genotypes are stable and suitable for N fertilizers since they were not analyzed by biplot (GGE or AMMI).

Line 287-288 – Rephrase the sentence.

Line 291-295 – Why not use simple, clear sentences? Confusing sentences make your writing unclear, ambiguous, and hard to follow.

Line 295-297 – You use instructions for authors when writing a paper. E.g: Our results are similar to those obtained by other researchers as Subedi et al. [75], Szmigiel et al. [47], and Kadar et al. [46]. Correct this throughout the manuscript.

Line 302 – content was achieved

Line 312 – tend

Line 317-318 – Do not use anyone else's quotes in your paper. It is plagiarism.

Line 320 – In other words, with a suitable nitrogen level, the grain protein content can be boosted without causing a decline in yield [81]. 

Line 326 – with a long

Line 332 – …1.74 g in F3 compared to____.

Line 343-350 – Paragraph is very poor writing. The manuscript is laden with spelling and grammatical errors, awkward sentence construction, and incomplete ideas.

Line 390 – What do you mean by negative differences? Use terms that have no scientific proof. It is a shortcoming in the manuscript.

Line 393 – Additional fertilization

Line 411 – showed a very low

Line 415-423 – Just the results again, which are not well displayed.

Line 426-459 – Compare the results with the existing reference.

Line 465-475 – Compare the results with the existing reference. A reference review may also involve comparisons, such as comparing the results of one study with that of a subsequent study.

Line 479-496 – Apart from your bad English, you only based yourself on results. No discussion.

Line 500-520 – Use simple sentence structures.

Line 521 – 3 decimal places (-0.00808 = -0.008)

Conclusion – This is not a conclusion, only results. It is necessary to further interest farmers in this system of fertilization and to give suggestions on which varieties to sow to show the relevance of further investments based on the decisions made.

Submission date:

22 March 2024

Please improve the English language. The way it is written corresponds to a report rather than a scientific paper. There is a repetition of similar sentences and there is a lack of systematic, critical assessments of the current literature. Your English is confusing and unscientific.

Author Response

Review The manuscript needs to improve.

I would like to stress that I support the potential publication of this paper. On the other hand, a few aspects of the manuscript need to be extensively improved. Please improve the English language. I strongly suggest major revisions in the writing with a native English speaker contributing to and reviewing the manuscript before re-submission.

Authors must thoroughly go through the instructions to authors.

Answer:

Dear reviewer,

Thanks for all your recommendations. All the recommendations made by you have been implemented. We have greatly improved the paper. All improvements (including those of other reviewers) are marked in red. Practically the entire paper was redone in order to better explain our experiment, and the paper to have better accuracy. If you think that further explanations and improvements are needed, please let us know.

Abstract – The scientific problem is not very clear. Moreover, the objectives of the work should also be better defined. The abstract does not include the key message—an explanation of why your findings contribute to the research and practice.

Answer: The abstract was completely redone according to the recommendations. Thank you very much.

Introduction – This section should be expanded on major issues related to this study (i.e. important environmental factors influencing crop production) including more references. Please clearly establish a niche in this section (what is the gap that your study comes to fill in) and clearly state your research objectives. There is too much irrelevant information that is not related to the goal of this paper.

Also, there is a repetition of similar sentences and there is a lack of systematic, critical assessments of current literature in the introduction. There are many unclear sentences.

The main problem with the paper is that the results presented are unclearly described and much more care must be taken to explain their line of thought and to better motivate the very strong statements made. I suggest finding a colleague with an English-speaking background, to read through the article and highlight to the authors which sentences are unclear and help to reformulate them so that the message comes across clear enough so the point can be made.

Answer: The introduction has been completely redone according to the recommendations. Thank you very much.

Line 31-33 – Please improve your English writing. The sentence is unclear.

Line 33-36 – The sentence is unclear. Botanically, the wheat grain is a caryopsis containing a single true seed defined as a matured ovule. However, researchers use the term grain.

Wheat straw can be eaten by cattle and sheep and can be fed as feed, but the nutritional content of wheat straw nutrition is insufficient.

Line 33-36 – Use the correct terminology (wheat crop).

Line 38-42 – The sentence is very poorly written, unclear, and confusing.

Line 45-51 – The length of the winter wheat vegetation period is about 280 days and it is not suitable for sowing in mountainous regions where winters are long, frosty, and with very low temperatures [18]. In those conditions, it is more suitable to sow spring wheat (March-April) with a shorter vegetation period (100-120 days) [19]. In recent years, breeders managed to create superior varieties of spring wheat that are high-yielding (about 6 t/ha) with a growing period of less than 100 days [20].

Line 57 – Consider using the latest references (23, 24).

Line 58 – What are the technological factors? Sorry, chemical fertilizer is not this factor.

Line 60-61 – Change “those with nitrogen” to “nitrogen fertilizers”.

Line 62-64 – Why are these factors important to your research? This delete.

Line 72 – Ear??? Wheat spike architecture is a key determinant of multiple grain yield components and a detailed examination of spike morphometric traits is beneficial to explain wheat grain yield and the effects of differing agronomy and genetics.

Line 74-79 and line 81 – It should not be in the introduction. This delete.

Answer: Everything has been corrected. Thank you very much.

 Materials and Methods – The methodology is not adequate and does not give readers information. In general, this section is not well conceived. First, write the material used and then the methods. Indicate which statistical program and statistical test (t-test, Tukey's test...) were used. Soil information is incomplete. Please provide the chemical composition of the soil because you used fertilizer.

In materials and methods, the authors need to describe and add some analysis. In line 114, the relationship between two variables was determined by the Pearson correlation coefficient. However, they did not explain the methods which data they used, the 2019 or 2020 or the average of the two continuous years.

Consider introducing new parameters. 1. The rainfall use efficiency (RUE) is a quotient between grain yield and total seasonal rainfall. 2. Regression analysis would help to find the trait that most determined the grain yield, or maybe for a better understanding the all relationships. The authors could discuss important correlations extensively and more in-depth. 3. Although climatic conditions are presented in Table 1, consider enhancing the presentation of results by graphically illustrating the relationship between climatic factors and the grain yield (regression).

The authors also need to add biplot analysis, i.e. AMMI or GGE since Genotype x environment interaction is significant for some parameters. By GGE biplot analysis the author could determine which is the best amount of nitrogen fertilizer for what wheat genotype, and also what wheat genotype is suitable for all nitrogen fertilizer.

 Answer: The presentation of the biological material has moved to the front; the material and method section was completed with soil information, the statistical analysis used, the biplot analysis was added for the interaction of variety x fertilization, variety x climatic conditions. RUE - unfortunately, we have not registered, at harvest, the production with straw.

Line 84 – Change “The placement of the experience was done according to the method of” to “The experiment was conducted in”.

Line 85 – repetitions.

Line 86 – a good

Line 88 – (on the same…

Line 91 – plot was

Line 93 – Delete “is the most important work of wheat care and”.

Line 94 – Change “on the basis of” to “based on”.

Line 99-100 – Very confusing.

Line 108 – were determined

Line 107 – Please see wheat growth stages:

https://www.mississippi-crops.com/2024/02/29/identifying-wheat-growth-stages-using-the-feekes-scale/

Line 111 – Change “b coefficient are” to “the b coefficient is”.

Line 124-153 – It is not well conceived. Move the paragraph to the beginning section because it is research material.

Line 154 – conditions

Line 155 – after???

Answer: Everything has been corrected. Thank you very much.

Results and Discussion – Subtitles are long. The discussion is informative and based on an assumption. This is not a discussion, only results. Please improve the English language while describing your results; the way it is written corresponds to a report rather than a scientific paper. Here again, try to “play” a little bit with the expressions you use. Do not repeat always the same expressions. This lowers the quality of your writing.

Similarly, such as in the introduction, there is a repetition of similar sentences and there is a lack of systematic, critical assessments of the current literature. Please check the whole text carefully. There is no single citation provided in this section. Moreover, there are some serious issues regarding the scientific English language. Moreover, in more than half of these sections, the authors attempt to discuss their important results and the rest is a quotation of literature. Please try to discuss your results in depth and link them with the appropriate literature throughout the whole section.

Unfortunately, your presentation of the results is terrible, confusing, and unscientific.

Be careful of the units you use, not mmolm^-2s^-1, but mmol m^–2 s^–1.

Why did you take the mean So as a control? Why didn't you compare the genotypes?

 Answer: Subtitles were shortened; citations were introduced, reformulations were made; the unit of measure was corrected; was considered a witness in order to be able to see which are the most productive varieties (achieve above average productions)

Line 182 – Change “a very important asset “its higher grain quality” [48,49]” to “a higher grain quality [48,49]”, using the sources published in the past 10 years.

Line 183-186 – Protein accumulation in the wheat grain depends on many factors, such as the wheat species, the variety, the climatic conditions, the natural fertility of the soil, and the doses of nitrogen fertilizers used [50].

Line 191 – Use the reference published in the past 10 years instead of reference 52.

Line 196 – that the protein content

Line 202 – by the nitrogen fertilization

Line 203 – to the data obtained

Line 204 – G factor and to the F x G

Line 205-206 – such as changes in the humidity of the grains during the harvest [59],

Line 210 – and of the interaction

Line 210-211 – Delete the sentence “All the other factors and interactions had a lower influence on it.”

Line 214-218 – Remember, reference always goes at the end of a sentence.

Line 224 – drive

Line 240 – a year

Line 245 – rates in generally

Line 248 – Remember, it is a big mistake to put signs next to the value of the trait when it increases (+0.78 kg hl-1) or decreases (-0.39°C).

Line 251-252 – In relation to what is the grain yield increased? Compare.

Line 259-260 – Change “decreased significantly by -0.39°C, respectively by -0.17 kPa” to “significantly decreases by 0.39°C and 0.17 kPa compared to control, respectively.”.

Line 266 – Again there are issues regarding the scientific English language. It is a problem in this manuscript.

Line 270-271 –Ciprian was the only genotype whose TKW increased significantly by 3.1 g (9.1%) compared to the control.

Line 280-282 – …those obtained for Pădureni and Taisa were statistically confirmed as very significantly negative. This is not true. It is not the negative values of the properties, but the increase and decrease.

Your presentation of the results is confusing and unscientific.

Line 284 – It is a good practice to define the abbreviation/acronym in the figure caption or legend. Add in legend the meaning of the abbreviations (F1..., S0-ct.....). Also, and in all figures.   

Line 285 – The authors mentioned that Results revealed interaction effects of factors on some traits. However, they cannot mention which genotypes are stable and suitable for N fertilizers since they were not analyzed by biplot (GGE or AMMI).

Line 287-288 – Rephrase the sentence.

Line 291-295 – Why not use simple, clear sentences? Confusing sentences make your writing unclear, ambiguous, and hard to follow.

Line 295-297 – You use instructions for authors when writing a paper. E.g: Our results are similar to those obtained by other researchers as Subedi et al. [75], Szmigiel et al. [47], and Kadar et al. [46]. Correct this throughout the manuscript.

Line 302 – content was achieved

Line 312 – tend

Line 317-318 – Do not use anyone else's quotes in your paper. It is plagiarism.

Line 320 – In other words, with a suitable nitrogen level, the grain protein content can be boosted without causing a decline in yield [81]. 

Line 326 – with a long

Line 332 – …1.74 g in F3 compared to____.

Line 343-350 – Paragraph is very poor writing. The manuscript is laden with spelling and grammatical errors, awkward sentence construction, and incomplete ideas.

Line 390 – What do you mean by negative differences? Use terms that have no scientific proof. It is a shortcoming in the manuscript.

Line 393 – Additional fertilization

Line 411 – showed a very low

Line 415-423 – Just the results again, which are not well displayed.

Line 426-459 – Compare the results with the existing reference.

Line 465-475 – Compare the results with the existing reference. A reference review may also involve comparisons, such as comparing the results of one study with that of a subsequent study.

Line 479-496 – Apart from your bad English, you only based yourself on results. No discussion.

Line 500-520 – Use simple sentence structures.

Line 521 – 3 decimal places (-0.00808 = -0.008)

 Answer: Everything has been corrected. Thank you very much.

Conclusion – This is not a conclusion, only results. It is necessary to further interest farmers in this system of fertilization and to give suggestions on which varieties to sow to show the relevance of further investments based on the decisions made.

Answer: The conclusions have been reformulated.

Please improve the English language. The way it is written corresponds to a report rather than a scientific paper. There is a repetition of similar sentences and there is a lack of systematic, critical assessments of the current literature. Your English is confusing and unscientific.

Answer: The correction was made by a specialized person.

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors, I have read your article «Yield, Quality and some Physiological Indicators of Spring Wheat as Affected by Climatic Conditions and Fertilizer System» with interest. Unfortunately, I cannot draw a conclusion about its relevance, since I am not an expert on Hungarian agriculture, and the introduction does not sufficiently explain this issue. If the main goal of the work is to choose the optimal dose of nitrogen fertilizers and spring wheat varieties, then the experimental design seems adequate. The advantage of the work is the commitment of its authors to the statistical interpretation of data. However, the manuscript requires significant improvement. Below I have written comments on each section of the manuscript.

The title of the article seems inappropriate. The influence of climatic conditions has not been studied in sufficient detail to include it in the title. The observations were carried out only for two years. The influence of climatic factors such as precipitation or temperature was not evaluated separately. This also applies to the formulation of the purpose of the study.

The introduction does not provide sufficient evidence of the significance of the study. A brief history of studying the problem is not described. Therefore, it is unclear why it is necessary to study the effect of fertilizers on the cultivation of spring wheat. Are the doses of fertilizers usually recommended for wheat cultivation on fertile soils for some reason not applicable to Transylvanian Plain? Lines 58-73 list widely known facts. They will not explain which knowledge gap needs to be filled with the new research.

Materials and Methods. Monitoring of the amount of nutrients in the soil in different years was not carried out, which is standard practice in the study of fertilizers. The authors attribute the differences between 2019 and 2020 only to climatic factors. But these differences may also be related to the accumulation or loss of nutrients in the soil. This potential connection has not been investigated.

Line 86-87. The reasons for the reference to the materials of the symposium are unclear. Why is the amount of nutrients and organic carbon not given in the description of the soil?

The assay of protein content is not described.

The software used for statistical interpretation of the data is not specified.

Results and discussions. Why discuss separately the effect of F x G interaction on Yield, if, according to the f-test, this interaction is insignificant?

It is not clear to me how the correlations in the section 3.4 contribute to the achievement of the purpose of this study. It seems to me that establishing a connection between biochemical, physiological parameters and wheat yield was not part of the research task written in the introduction. Moreover, the section 3.4 is poorly written. The authors do not explain the reasons for the correlations, do not formulate conclusions. The text contains unfortunate wording. For example, «The grain yield variation is significantly influenced by the test weight fluctuation». Correlation does not always mean influence or causation. Two indicators can change synchronously if they are limited by the same factor.The yield and the test weight is just such a case.

The text and table 3 do not explain what Y0–ct., S0–ct. and °°° mean.

Conclusions. «For the stability of the harvests, we recommend the cultivation of two, three or more spring wheat genotypes». This recommendation is not based on the data obtained by the authors. This issue has not been studied in the peer-reviewed work. On the contrary, in both years of the experiment, the same wheat genotypes produced the largest amount of grain.

Author Response

Dear authors, I have read your article «Yield, Quality and some Physiological Indicators of Spring Wheat as Affected by Climatic Conditions and Fertilizer System» with interest. Unfortunately, I cannot draw a conclusion about its relevance, since I am not an expert on Hungarian agriculture, and the introduction does not sufficiently explain this issue. If the main goal of the work is to choose the optimal dose of nitrogen fertilizers and spring wheat varieties, then the experimental design seems adequate. The advantage of the work is the commitment of its authors to the statistical interpretation of data. However, the manuscript requires significant improvement. Below I have written comments on each section of the manuscript.

Answer:

Dear reviewer,

Thanks for all your recommendations. All the recommendations made by you have been implemented. We have greatly improved the paper. All improvements (including those of other reviewers) are marked in red. Practically the entire paper was redone in order to better explain our experiment, and the paper to have better accuracy. If you think that further explanations and improvements are needed, please let us know.

The title of the article seems inappropriate. The influence of climatic conditions has not been studied in sufficient detail to include it in the title. The observations were carried out only for two years. The influence of climatic factors such as precipitation or temperature was not evaluated separately. This also applies to the formulation of the purpose of the study.

Answer: to the results and discussions section, for production, a biplot analysis was added for the genotype x climatic conditions interaction

The introduction does not provide sufficient evidence of the significance of the study. A brief history of studying the problem is not described. Therefore, it is unclear why it is necessary to study the effect of fertilizers on the cultivation of spring wheat. Are the doses of fertilizers usually recommended for wheat cultivation on fertile soils for some reason not applicable to Transylvanian Plain? Lines 58-73 list widely known facts. They will not explain which knowledge gap needs to be filled with the new research.

Answer: Everything has been corrected. Thank you very much.

Materials and Methods. Monitoring of the amount of nutrients in the soil in different years was not carried out, which is standard practice in the study of fertilizers. The authors attribute the differences between 2019 and 2020 only to climatic factors. But these differences may also be related to the accumulation or loss of nutrients in the soil. This potential connection has not been investigated.

Line 86-87. The reasons for the reference to the materials of the symposium are unclear. Why is the amount of nutrients and organic carbon not given in the description of the soil?

The assay of protein content is not described.

The software used for statistical interpretation of the data is not specified.

Answer: Everything has been corrected. Thank you very much.

Results and discussions. Why discuss separately the effect of F x G interaction on Yield, if, according to the f-test, this interaction is insignificant?

Answer: because there are differences between genotypes.

It is not clear to me how the correlations in the section 3.4 contribute to the achievement of the purpose of this study. It seems to me that establishing a connection between biochemical, physiological parameters and wheat yield was not part of the research task written in the introduction. Moreover, the section 3.4 is poorly written. The authors do not explain the reasons for the correlations, do not formulate conclusions. The text contains unfortunate wording. For example, «The grain yield variation is significantly influenced by the test weight fluctuation». Correlation does not always mean influence or causation. Two indicators can change synchronously if they are limited by the same factor.The yield and the test weight is just such a case. –

Answer: to see the relationship between 2 variables; this information is useful for improving the improvement program.

The text and table 3 do not explain what Y0–ct., S0–ct. and °°° mean

Answer: Everything has been corrected. Thank you very much.

Conclusions. «For the stability of the harvests, we recommend the cultivation of two, three or more spring wheat genotypes». This recommendation is not based on the data obtained by the authors. This issue has not been studied in the peer-reviewed work. On the contrary, in both years of the experiment, the same wheat genotypes produced the largest amount of grain.

Answer: the conclusions part has been completely redone.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

In my opinion, it was written with many mistakes. Very poor English. It should be rewritten and reconstructed from the beginning.

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript is very improved compared to the old version.
Necessary are minor revisions. Authors must thoroughly go through the instructions to authors because references in the text are not written well.

Abstract – The scientific problem is very clear and the objectives are better defined.
Introduction – This section has been improved.
Materials and Methods – This section has been improved.
Results and Discussion – The results are comprehensive. The discussion is improved, but still, the authors attempt to discuss their important results and the rest is a quotation of literature.
Conclusion – This section has been improved.

Some of the remarks are not the only ones, check the whole text.
Line 21 – Change “This poly-factorial experiment” to “This multifactorial experiment with three factors”.
Line 43 – Delete “a notion supported by Khalid et al., 2023”.
…namely proteins, B, PP, E, K vitamins, and minerals such as K, Mg, and Cu—which boast significant health impacts [15].
Line 59 – Always write an explanation for an abbreviation the first time you mention it.
Test weight (TW) is a critical…
Line 81 – as detailed by Chen et al. [41].
Line 127 – Ciprian has a very…
Line 156 – Change “precursor” to “previous”.
Lines 200-202 – Confusing.
…

Submission date:
10 April 2024

Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

Answer:

Dear reviewer,

Thank you very much for your recommendations. We have made the corrections according to your requirements:

• We have corrected the bibliography on the text according to the instructions for authors;
• Line 21 – We made the change “This poly-factorial experiment” to “This multifactorial experiment with three factors”.
• Line 43 – We deleted “a notion supported by Khalid et al., 2023”.
• Line 59 – We wrote an explanation for the abbreviation TW the first time we mention it. Test weight (TW) is a critical…

• Line 81 – We deleted “as detailed by Chen et al.” [41].
• Line 127 – We have corrected Ciprian has a very…
• Line 156 – We changed “precursor” to “previous”.
• Lines 200-202 – We rephrased.
• we replaced “climate conditions” with “weather conditions”.

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

I have read the revised article and made sure that it has been improved in many ways. However, it still seems to me that the term "climatic conditions" is incorrectly used in the article. Climatic conditions are stable weather features in a certain area. Two years is not enough. You mistakenly put an equal sign between the differences of years and the climatic conditions. In addition to the weather, other factors could contribute to the difference between the years. I strongly advise removing the phrase "climatic conditions" from the title and purpose of the study. I also recommend replacing "climatic conditions" in the text of the article with "interannual differences" or another similar term. 

Author Response

Answer:

Dear reviewer,

Thank you very much for your recommendations. We have made the corrections according to your requirements and replaced "climate conditions" with "weather conditions".