All reviews received by SciRev

Motivation: In literature, there is a very simple method for estimating the genetic correlation matrix. Due to its simplicity, this method is relatively often used. However it has some undesired numerical problems. We submitted a note (not a full paper) showing how to solve these problems. The second reviewer seems not to have read the manuscript in detail, since he made several statements on the manuscript which were very wrong. The editor proposed that we should compare the method to ASReml and resubmit as a new submission if our methods is better than the latter.

Our idea of this note was not to outperform a commercial software. In case a heuristic method which can be calculated with pen and paper would beat a commercial software, we would not submit this as a note, but as a full paper, and probably not to this journal...

Motivation: The review process was quite long. Reviewer #2 improved the quality of the manuscript, making interesting comments, highlighting typing errors and suggesting a better organization of the text. On the contrary, Reviewer #1 did not add useful comments and argued that English language should be improved. It was funny to notice that Reviewer #2 placed at least 5 English language mistakes in its review made of 185 words.

Motivation: Both reviewers seemed to have taken their role seriously. They gave detailed feedback. I interpret the circumstance that the journal found good reviewers as an indicator of a good reputation.

Motivation: The second round of revisions occurred during COVID-19, therefore there were delays in getting the information back. Despite the Editors external obligations, the review and decision arrived within a reasonable timeframe all things considered.

Motivation: Overall would not recommend trying to publish in this journal.
* The aims and scope of this journal are not clearly stated. It seems to be in the area of plant science, but from the review comments, it seems to want to be in the field of agricultural engineering as well. In that case, it would be better to try and publish in journals such as CompAg or Bio-systems Engineering.
* Too much time (more than 1 month) for the paper status to change to "under review"
* The reviews were written in very poor English.

Motivation: We were very disappointed with the editorial handling of our manuscript. Every step of the process took very long, and the choice of reviewers was problematic, as two out of the three reviewers were clearly no experts in the field. The production process after acceptance was bad as well, as they've made lots of errors in text and formulas (and even changes to images!), which were definitely not present in the original manuscript. In my opinion, such an editorial handling is not acceptable, especially from a journal with professional full-time editors and horrendous publishing fees.

Motivation: Withdrew manuscript from journal due to inordinate delays after 18 months. It was an invited paper for a special issue by guest editors. Unfortunately, the guest editors were not able to make definitive editorial decisions but were required to have all decisions cleared by the editor in chief. Some of the papers eventually published in the special issue were in review for 2 years.

Motivation: Nearly 3 weeks to get a desk rejection was a bit long, but during the COVID pandemic, it's understandable. The manuscript to evaluated by an associate editor who found that the scale of the study was far too small to support our generalisations.

Motivation: Rapid rejection. The manuscript was discussed with the editorial board who did not consider that it represented a development of sufficient importance to warrant publication in this journal. They discussed our manuscript with the editorial board of a sister journal (Communications Biology) who offered to send it to peer-review should we accept the transfer.

Motivation: The overall review process was fast. I thank the editor and editorial team for their prompt work despite the difficult circumstances.

Motivation: The review process was very fast. The editor also suggested another journal to submit our article. I am very happy with the quick response and the editor's answer.

Motivation: The time to a desk reject was quite long, however, it was during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic which may have delayed everything. The Associate Editor read my paper carefully and gave a careful explanation of the rejection. I was told approximately 85% of papers are rejected.

Motivation: They are very unprofessional. After 8 months of revising paper we received email that they can't find reviewers. So, our overall experience is to avoid this journal.

Motivation: While many of the reviewers comments were fair some were fairly naive. One reviewer complained about how recent the references used were but due to the nature of the paper this was a necessity. Overall the biggest issue with the journal was the time taken for initial reviews to come back. I appreciate this was initially over the holiday season but almost 6 months to hear anything back is far too long.

Motivation: The manuscript should be refined for English grammatical structure and phraseology. The manuscript should be polished by an English linguist or language service (note in marked-up copy text where changes are made). Details of author-pays services can be found, for example, at: http://nativeenglishedit.com/