Dear Authors,
Your original manuscript has received interesting comments from the two referees. The request for revision ranges from moderate to major. Therefore, I suggest you should submit a revised version for the HESS phase, but I would warn that another round of referees' comment might be required.
Nunzio Romano

Dear Authors,
I agree with the present referees that your contribution still requires some (not so large, actually) refinement. Please, consider the comments received (especially those raised by ref.#3, but a final comment from Ref.#2 was also interesting) and upload a revised paper with the replies to the comments' received so far. If you disagree with some comments/suggestions, please clearly explain why.

Dear Authors,
Your last revised version can be accepted as it is. Congratulations!
However, I would like to make a personal comment about the usage of the term "soil water stress" (as raised by one of the reviewer). I agree that it is widely used in the literature, but this does not necessarily mean that it is strictly speaking correct. Often writers use a term they have seen in previous papers, without thinking too much on the actual meaning, or this occurs because they think that it is widely accepted. It is a fact that there is no stress in soil-water, whereas the water stress is in the plant actually. I would offer a suggestion to the Authors. Why do not write in the introduction that you are talking about water stress in the plants, but that simialrly to a large bulk of papers the term "soil water stress" will be instead used in the present paper?