Review History
Molecular and agro-morphological diversity assessment of some bread wheat genotypes and their crosses for drought tolerance

After your corrections, your manuscript can be accepted.

[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by Julin Maloof, a PeerJ Section Editor covering this Section #]

The changes you made have improved your manuscript considerably, but you should also correct some minor points that were overlooked. After this, your manuscript will be accepted.
1. You should include the findings on the combining ability obtained from the diallel analysis in the abstract section. Positive and significant combining abilities are important in both parental selection and determining promising hybrids, as they indicate a contribution to the relevant trait. You should synthesize these with other findings and provide a conclusion.
2. Lines 94-100: You should state your purpose clearly here. You have made it complicated by cramming literature in between. Please edit and emphasize the focus of your study. Do not ignore that the combining ability results obtained from the diallel analysis helped you make your choice.
3. Lines 182-184: Clarify which statistical program you performed the Griffing analysis. Is it R?
4. Line 209: If you use the abbreviation "P vs C" here and only once, write it as "parent vs crosses" without abbreviating it.
5. Lines 410-422: Add literature.
6. The conclusion section needs some development. Reorganize it by paying attention to the points I have indicated in the abstract. Synthesize the results of the combining ability analysis obtained from Griffing analysis molecular and phenotypic results and make recommendations for future breeding studies for drought tolerance. For example, good parents and promising hybrids. In your response letter, briefly explain the importance of the marker-trait relationships you mentioned and how the data you obtained will be used in future studies.
7. Pay attention to the words that should be italicized throughout the text. For example, Triticum urartu

-Line 20: This sentence is not very clear. Please revise it.
-Line 23: Did you make a comparison only in well-watered conditions? If so, how did you determine drought tolerance? You should also write your method in the abstract in a completely understandable way.
-Line 34: Use "drought-tolerant" instead of "drought-resistant" and do the same throughout the text.
-The abstract section is quite inadequate. It needs to be improved and more details about the content of the study should be given.
-Lines 39-42: Unnecessary sentences and not very relevant to the subject. You should state the problems of wheat caused by drought. These have already been written millions of times.
-Lines 75-81: I hope you have explained the relationship between the abundance of genetic diversity and drought tolerance throughout the text. If not, the purpose of the study did not convince me much. Before crossbreeding for drought tolerance, it would be more logical to crossbreed genotypes that you know or find to be sensitive and tolerant to drought and examine their genetic diversity and segragating rates in F2. I hope you made the crosses by selecting the parents accordingly. However, I hope you conducted the study knowing that you will see only the dominant character in the phenotype in heterozygous individuals without segragating in F1 and that the obtained variation is environmentally sourced and that you discussed your results accordingly.
-Line 144-145: Are you sure that your plants grew enough in pots to measure these traits after 60 days? Also, how many spikes did you measure? You should convince us that there are enough plants for these measurements.
-The material method section should be detailed.
-More details are needed regarding the evaluation of phenotypic traits in the data analysis section. According to which experimental design was variance analysis performed? Also, if you did crossbreeding in diallel mating design, explaining the genetic parameters by performing diallel analysis will strengthen this study even more. It would be good if you added it.
-It is not very reasonable to reveal drought tolerance by determining genetic diversity in molecular analyses. It would be better if you looked at the marker-trait relationship.
-You should also present a few numerical values ​​while explaining agro-morphological traits. Also indicate the decrease or increase rates of your genotypes in the measured traits when moving from well-watered to water scarcity conditions. These are the things that give us an idea about drought tolerance.
-The discussion section is quite insufficient. This is not just a genetic diversity study, you also aimed to suggest drought-tolerant genotypes. In order to plan a breeding program, you should first know and select your parents well. In addition to my criticisms above and the recommendations of the reviewers, in order for the study to be accepted;
1) Diallel analyses should be added to the statistical analyses and associated with the results
2) Marker-trait relationships should also be added by simply analyzing them. You can benefit from the article titled "Phenotypic and genetic diversity of doubled haploid bread wheat population and molecular validation for spike characteristics, end-use quality, and biofortification capacity" on this subject.
3) Were the same genotypes included in the groups obtained from agro-morphological traits and molecular analyses? If so, and if not, why? Add this to the discussion. Which traits are more effective in selecting drought tolerant and sensitive genotypes? Are molecular markers supportive in this selection?
-If you are doing a study on drought tolerance, determining genetic diversity in molecular analyses alone will not take you anywhere. If you claim this, you should convince us with a very strong argument.
-Also, the conclusion section should be written better.
-The English of the manuscript should be improved, the terminology should be reviewed, and some typos errors should be corrected. There are quite a few of them.
-Also, carefully check the journal's rules once again and correct your manuscript.
Although the reviewers want minor revisions, my decision is for major revisions.

**PeerJ Staff Note:** Please ensure that all review and editorial comments are addressed in a response letter and that any edits or clarifications mentioned in the letter are also inserted into the revised manuscript where appropriate.

**Language Note:** The Academic Editor has identified that the English language must be improved. PeerJ can provide language editing services - please contact us at [email protected] for pricing (be sure to provide your manuscript number and title). Alternatively, you should make your own arrangements to improve the language quality and provide details in your response letter. – PeerJ Staff