The Effects of Management (Tillage, Fertilization, Plant Density) on Soybean Yield and Quality in a Three-Year Experiment under Transylvanian Plain Climate Conditions

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

your research data have a potential for publication in a scientific journal.

The present manuscript has a character of a technical report. I recommend a total revision of the manuscript. Please consult other statistical experts. See also in comparable publications (e.g. MDPI Agronomy).

There are many aspects for improvements:

=> The introduction should be focused on your research factors (tillage, fertilization, plant density, climate) and analysed parameters (crop yield and quality)

=> P and K: which extraction method was used??

=> Line 107-110: heavy aggregates => heavy farm machinery

=> Figure 1 and Figure 2 can be cancelled, because it has no reseach relevant information. The important climatic data are shown in Table 1 and Table 2.

=> 2.2. Research design (factors, gradations) should be given in a table

=> Factor fertilization: 100 kg ha-1 NPK 20:20:0? You fertilized 100 kg ha-1 which kind of fertilizer ?

=> Line 192 – 197: Harvest was performed by a plot combine (1.5m cutting width, Wintersteiger™, Austria) in the second decade of September in each experimental year.

=> 2.3. to measure the moisture content of grains by using hygrometer (Granomt Perten, Land???). STAS???

You standardize the moisture content to 13% ????

=>2.4. Statistics

More details are required. You used also Duncan-test.

=> Table3

Delete the lines „Mean (Control)“. This data (2414 kg ha-1, 37.4 g protein kg-1 DM,  etc.) which ist he overall mean can be mentioned  the text.

Mean is not the control!!!!

Mark the significant differences with subscripts (^{a, b}, ^c) after the number. At the moment it is not clear, where are the significant differences between the fertilization treatments and betweent the seed rate treatments.

What does 000 mean in the ANOVA-table?

Which Interaction is shown? I would suggest to show all two-way interactions. For the interpreation of the statistical analysis, it most be clear detected interactions are „beat“ the main factor. That means if you found a YxF interaction, a detected F effect is not significant because there is a YxF interaction.

=> Line 343-345 is not consistent with table 3. According ANOVA in table 3, there is a year effect on protein, fat and fiber content.

=> Table 5: Which kind of mean comparison test was used in table 5. LSD?

=> In the section 3 and 4 and also in the abstract it should be shown clearly, what are the effects of tillage, fertilization, plant density and climate on crop yield and quality paramters. If there are factor interactions, these should be also shown and interpreted.

Author Response

Please see file attached. Thanks!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have addressed all my comments in a satisfactory way. As far as I can judge the authors also incorporated all comments of the other reviewers. The MS may be publisched in its actual form.

Author Response

Thank you very much.

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors changed the manuscript in accordance with the reviewers' comments, improving its style and content, so the work is publishable in the present form.

Author Response

Thank you very much.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

please be very careful for the final revision.

The notes are attached in a word document.

Kind regards

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

Dear kind reviewer,

Thank you very much for your patience with our mistakes and non-conformities!

Notes:

The manuscript must be revised with the focus on

• Uniformity of the abbreviations and their descriptions.
• Uniformity of scientific terms

Answer:

We revised the manuscript and all the interventions are marked on with the green colour.

All the abbreviations are now described in the text and these are uniformly used and the scientific terms too. We also attentively verified the commentaries from the text according to data from tables.

Hoping that the revised manuscript meets your requirements now, we set out below the changes made based on your detailed comments:

Detailed comments:

The gradation of the factors should also be mentioned in the abstract.

Answer:

Line 14-21 from the Abstract: The gradation of the factors is mentioned now in the text:

A multifactorial experiment was carried out through AxBxCxD-R-3x2x3x3- 2 formula, where A means the year (a1, 2017; a2 ,2018 and a3, 2019); B – the soil tillage system (b1, conventional tillage with mouldboard plough; b2= reduced tillage with chisel cultivator); C – the fertilizer variants (c1, unfertilized; c2, one single rate of fertilization: 40 kg ha^-1 of nitrogen + 40 kg ha^-1 of phosphorus and c3, two rates of fertilization: 40 kg ha^-1 of nitrogen + 40 kg ha^-1 of phosphorus (at sowing) + 46 kg ha^-1 of nitrogen at V3 stage); D - the seeding rate [d1=45 germinating grains (gg) m^-2 ; d2=55 gg m^-2; and d3=65 gg m^-2] and R – the replicates (r1= the first and r2=the second).

I suppose also to mention the main effects of the management factors according table 4 in the abstract. Eg. Tillage is has no effect, year and fertilization  affected yield and quality parameter.

Answer:

Line 21-28 from the Abstract:

Tillage had no effect, the clime specific of the years and fertilization affected the yield and the quality parameters. Regarding to the soybean yield, it reacted favorably to a higher seeding rate (55–65 gg m^-2) and two rates of fertilization. The qualitative characteristics of soybeans are affected by the fertilization rates applied to crop which influence the protein, and fiber content in the soybean grains. Higher values of protein content were recorded with a reduced tillage system, i.e., 38.90g kg^-1 DM in the variant with one single rate of fertilization at a seeding rate of 45 gg per m^-2 and 38.72g kg^-1 DM in the variant with two fertilizations at a seeding rate of 65 gg m^-2.

Humus content 3.73 g kg-1 ??? Please check it, because it is not true.

Answer:

Line 101: humus content 3.73 %

Description of fertilization in table is not clear and confusing. Additional it is not corresponding with the results tables and in the text.

Line 150 and 151 is not corresponding with the table 3.

Line 151 no calcium ?, N40 ?

Line 152: N content in urea 40 % ? Urea has usual a N content of 46%.

Which amounts (kg ha-1) of N, P and K where fertilized with which fertilizer in C2 and C3?

I suppose followed structure:

Table 3. Experimental factors with gradations

The kind of fertilizer with N content should be described in the text.

The Abbreviations of the factors and gradations should be used consistently in the manuscript.

Answer:

Line 153-157:

Description of fertilization in table is changed and it correspond now with the results tables and the text discussions.

Table 3. The experimental factors with gradations

*granulated complex fertilizer which contain 20% nitrogen (N) and20% phosphorus (P), achieving N40 (40 kg ha^-1 of N and P40 (40 kg ha^-1of P)

** V3–V5 phenophase = vegetative stages [34]

*** urea which contains 46% nitrogen, achieving N46 (46 kg ha^-1 of N)

Delete CTr in table 4.

Answer:

The control was deleted in table 4 and the factors correspond with the table 3 description.

I am not clear, what you do with the two-way ANOVA (section 2.4). In table 4, you showed 4 factors?

Answer:

Line 192-196: Section 2.4

The data were processed using Anova PoliFact Soft, 2015 [35]. A Fisher’s protected least significant difference (LSD) test was used to determine the significance of the differences among the variants results and control (p-values 0.05, 0.01, and 0.001) for each experimental factor, and the Duncan test for multiple comparisons among the experimental variants for p-value 0.05. Anova PoliFact Soft is USAMV Cluj Napoca property.

If you analysed the 4 factors simultaneously, then it is a four-way ANOVA.

Answer:

In the table 4, we analysed separately each of that 4 factors.

Table 5

Line 320-323: Table 5 was simplified and the subscript explanations are in according with the data and method

Data in Figure 1 – Figure 3 should be presented like Table 5 (Uniformity of data presentation)

Answer:

Line 361-377: Data from figures 1 to 3 were revised and comprised in the tables 6 to 8 presented like table 5.

330-332: …. is slightly (i.e, not) statistically significant…?

According your analysis, the protein content was in the year 2017 significant lower than in the other years (2018 and 2019), whereas the fat content was significant higher.

Answer:

Line 328-333: The paragraph is now in according by the table 4 results.

In the Transylvanian Plain, the effect of climate on the protein content of soybeans is statistically significant during the experiment; in 2018 and 2019 the protein content of soybean was higher than 2017. A statistically significant variation was achieved in total fat content too between 2017 and the next two years of experiment. It significantly decreased in 2018 and 2019 compared to 2017. Only the fiber content was stabile with the climatic variations (Table 4).

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

your manuscript deals the effect of management (tillage, fertilization, plant density) on soybean yield and soybean quality in a three-year experiment under Pannonian climate conditions.

I suggest to adapt the title to "Influence of management (tillage, fertilization, plant density) on soybean yield and quality in a three-year experiment under Pannonian climate conditions."

There is a great potential for improvement in the readabilty in all sections.

You had a four-factorial research design with the factor:
=> Year: 2017, 2018, 2019
=> Tillage: CT, MT
=> Fertilization: 40N:40P, 80N:40P
=> Crop density: 45 plants m-2, 55 plants m-2, 65 plant -2

Showing the statistical effect of these 4 factors on dependent variables (soybean yield, protein content, fat content, fiber content) requires an 4-way ANOVA with multiple mean comparison and adequat presentation (table with data and ANOVA).

Some specific commends:

Introduction:

=> use the consitent term "seeding rate" instead of sowing thickness, crop thickness

=> Use SI units. e.g. you use 0,97 mil ha? also million

=> Specify “technological factors” you mean the management factors (tillage, fertilization, plant density);  Climate factors “ Year???

Material and Methods

Integrate subsections:

e.g.

2.1 Site description

(site, soil climate)

2.2 Experimental design
(research factors, field experiment)

2.3 Analysed parameters

(yield, grain quality)

2.4 Statistics

(ANOVA, multiple mean comparison test, software, etc.)

Soil texture: % clay, % silt, % sand

Core supplied with humus?

Humus content should be expressed as soil organic carbon (g kg^-1)

N, P and K soil content is expressed in mg kg-1,

Which method was used for analyzing of P and K.

Multiannual: which range of year?

Soil susceptibility to compaction needs a textual description of soil (see before: % clay, % sili, % sand).

Biological material ? I guess it is variety

Experimental design should give in a table:

Factor C – what does mean “epoch”

Specify the fertilizer: type

Seeding rate: 45, 55 and 65 grains m^-2

If the weed and pest species should be mentioned use also the englisch name.

Important information is missing: How and when the harvest was done?

No information (plot size, replicates, experimental design) about the field experiments. This must be mentioned.

Which parameters were analysed in the lab and with which methods?

Fiber was not analysed by the Gerhardt Analytical Systems device (by Kjeldhal method).

Results and Discussion

Climate data should be shortly descripted (like Table 1 and 2) and integrated in the section M+M (2.1).

It is not a result. The year with its climate (Table 1 and 2) is a research factor, which is described in section 2.1.

Subsections:

3.1 Soybean yield

3.2 Soybean quality

In one table (see attachment) the results with statistics can be shown.

The management effect on soybean yield and soybean quality should be discussed with literature. Also the conclusions and abstract should be modified according the your research design.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Editor of LAND,

the manuscript "Influence of different cultivation techniques on soybean production and its quality indicators" is an interesting work about soybean yields as influenced by management and climate. The MS is generally interesting and the topic could fit into your journal's scope. Thus it could be potentially of interest to your readership.

General comments:

The MS is well written, there are minor English issues, but they don't interfere with the understanding. The introduction is very nice and well done. M&M section is ok, but could be improved (see attached PDF). My main concern is the results/discussion part. The authors merely report the yields and compare it to some others, but there is no substance on the many written pages. Nothing is wrong there, but I don't see the point in describing the results and comparing them. At the end of the document I had the impression of having read a technical report of some project. There is no novelty in the presented work. The provided information could be just published in some FAO Newsletter or similar. I encourage the authors to elaborate some interesting hypothesis and dig deeper into the data to extract the real interesting and novel information of that. Besides that, there are too many typos and format errors (I marked many of them in the attached PDF) to be a publishable work. Thus my recommendation is to reject the work in its present form.

All other issues are embedded in the attached PDF.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript refers to a three-year trial on the effects of soil tillage, fertilization and sowing density. By highlighting elements of innovation in the results obtained and a valid statistical analysis of the data, the manuscript contains severe methodological and structural limits.

The English used by the authors is poor, some sentences are difficult to understand.

The units of measurement do not conform the international standard system.

Some methodological aspects were considered as results, such as the climatic characterization of the area in the period prior to the field trial.

As for fertilization, the authors do not define the soil elemental concentration, nor the methodology for calculating the fertilizer supply.

The discussion is poor and contains few bibliographic references: although the authors have included 36 bibliographic references in all the text, almost all of which are cited in the introduction. For example, the part relating to the administration of nitrogen to the soil refers to a work published in 1993. The discussion must be integrated with references from updated literature.

In conclusion, the manuscript should be rewritten, especially improving the methodology description and discussion section.