An FCR revise decision is an opportunity, not a formality. The response letter must move every reviewer toward acceptance while keeping the editor confident the revision converges. FCR reviewers tend to focus on a recurring set of agronomy concerns — answer them with data and detail, not assertion.
| Reviewer concern | How to respond |
|---|---|
| "Generality / scope unclear" | restate multi-environment evidence; scope the claim explicitly |
| "Wrong/incomplete statistics" | refit with the correct mixed model / error structure; report SED/LSD, G×E |
| "Methods not reproducible" | add cultivar, soil, weather-vs-phenology, management, design detail |
| "Discussion repeats results" | rewrite to interpret and place in agronomic context |
| "Conclusions overreach" | add scope conditions; align conclusions to the data |
| "More seasons/sites needed" | add available environments or justify and bound the claim |
For each reviewer comment:
> [Quoted reviewer comment]
Response: [What we did / why we respectfully disagree].
Change: [Section/page/table-figure number where the revision appears].
Open with a short summary of the main changes to the editor; group by reviewer; end each entry with the location of every change so the editor can verify quickly. Keep the data-availability materials and exhibits in sync with any new analyses.
These are the objections FCR reviewers raise most, paired with the response that moves the needle. Match the fix to the objection.
| Reviewer pushback | The venue-specific fix |
|---|---|
| "A single site-season cannot support a yield claim" | report the across-environment mean and the environment×treatment term; scope the claim |
| "The agronomic mechanism is not established" | link the yield effect to a measured process (N uptake, RUE, WUE); add the path, not just correlation |
| "Statistics ignore the trial's blocking structure" | refit with the correct whole-plot/sub-plot error; re-report adjusted means + SED |
| "Result may be confounded with environment" | show the interaction (AMMI/GGE or its variance) rather than averaging it away |
| "Discussion restates results" | rewrite to interpret: why this environment, what process, where it travels |
Illustrative exchange; wording is a template. Reviewer 2 writes: "The cultivar advantage is significant, but the one-way ANOVA ignores the split-plot structure, and 'improves yield' is too broad." A strong response concedes the statistics and protects the contribution at once: refit the mixed model (cultivar as sub-plot, environment×cultivar random); report the advantage as ~0.9 t ha⁻¹ in 3 high-N environments, non-significant in 2 dry ones; revise the conclusion to "raises yield in high-yielding environments, no penalty elsewhere"; cite the new Table 3 and SED column. The same re-analysis answers both the methods and over-reach objections, keeping dataset and biplot in sync.
【Editor's decisive points】addressed first? [list]
【Coverage】every reviewer comment answered? [Y/N]
【Concede vs rebut】each tagged with evidence + change location
【Reviewer conflicts】reconciled and explained to editor? [Y/N]
【Contribution/scope protected】no dilution of general relevance? [Y/N]
【Data/exhibits in sync】updated with new analyses? [Y/N]
【Next】resubmit via Editorial Manager
../../resources/external_tools.md — statistics packages for requested re-analyses../../resources/official-source-map.md — review model and decision categories