PLANT SCIENCE

The quality of the manuscript review is really disappointing. I recently submitted an article that I had prepared for a solid year, thinking it was completely presentable. Unexpectedly, the first feedback received stated that there were ethical issues in the article, just like another paper I had published before, from the experiments to the data to the conclusions. This comment was so powerful that the editor immediately rejected the paper, while other reviewers' feedback has yet to be received. Seeing this comment and decision is simply absurd. There is indeed another parallel work that was published in another journal earlier, but the data, methods, objectives, and conclusions are completely different from those of the paper under review. The reviewer probably did not thoroughly read the content, hastily drawing conclusions that determine the fate of the article. The editor is also quite irresponsible. As an associate editor of a journal myself, I generally do not easily conclude on ethical issues, at least not based solely on one reviewer's opinion.

First review takes three months, with one reviewer suggesting minor revisions and another suggesting major revisions. The editor rejects the submission but invites a resubmission. After conducting additional experiments, the resubmission undergoes a second review which takes one and a half months. The same reviewers are involved, with one agreeing directly and the other raising some language issues. The editor gives the authors five days to make the necessary revisions. After five days, the revised version is accepted by the editor.

Overall evaluation: The reviewers are very professional and responsible. The editor is relatively friendly. It is said that PS is also a well-established journal in the field of botany, and the overall quality of the article is good. Best wishes for everyone's article to be accepted soon!