Growth, Nutrient Accumulation, and Nutritional Efficiency of a Clonal Eucalyptus Hybrid in Competition with Grasses

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1. I think, you can sum up these two sentences into one i.e.  The objective was to evaluate the growth, relative accumulation of nutrients, and nutritional efficiency of the clonal eucalyptus hybrid I144 (Eucalyptus urophylla × Eucalyptus grandis) competing with invasive grasses such as Megathyrsus maximus cv. BRS Zuri, Urochloa brizantha cv. marandu, Urochloa decumbens cv. Basilisk and the control (eucalyptus plants without competition with weeds). (Line 24-29, Page 1)

2. Almost all the studied parameters of the clonal Eucalyptus are lower when compared with the three types of grasses, I do not know why are you not adjusting the whole passage in a simple one sentence mentioning that all studied  parameters are lower (Line 33-42, Page 1)

3. Line 37-39 and Line 41-42 ( Page 1) are similar and redundant.

4. What do you mean by Line 42-43, Page 1

5. The Abstract needs more improvement and structured very poor. Moreover, it is lacking in explaining the results of the exact objective of the study. The main conclusive statement is missing in the abstract also. (Page 1)

6. Better to include some specific results (values or in percentage) in Abstract about nutritional efficiency and relative accumulation of nutrients as they are the main parts of your subject and objective.

7. Keywords can be; Clonal eucalyptus, Growth, Invasive grasses, Nutritional efficiency, Relative accumulation of nutrients (Line 45-46, Page 2)

8. Recheck and rewrite the sentence as the word “globally” in relation to “In Brazil (at the beginning of the sentence)’ posing an ambiguous or double meanings. (Line 52-52, Page 2)

9. All the paragraphs of the “Introduction” part is lacking in consistency. The “Introduction” needs more improvement for its structure. Consistency between sentences and paragraphs are very necessary in relation to your Subject.

10. The Introduction must include the significance statement of the study.

11. The paragraph title “2.1 Location and soil” may be replace with “Study site and soil characteristics” (Line 80, Page 2)

12. “Work” needs to be replace with “study” (Line 81, Page 2)

13. Check the value of pH as pH5.0 is acidic and mostly all nutrients are unavailable at this pH. Confirm whether the pH changed after addition of nutrients? (Line 86, Page 2)

14. How about available Nitrogen (N) amounts? (Line 86, Page 2)

15. Better if mention the amounts, if possible (Line 89, Page 2)

16. The title “2.3 Conducting the experiment” may replace with “Experimental Layout” (Line 97, Page 3)  

17. The paragraphs 2.2 and 2.3 can be summed into a single paragraph with title “Experimental design and layout” (Line 92 and 97, Page 2,3)

18. Rewrite title “2.4 Evaluated parameters” into a meaningful title (Line 109, Page 3)  

19. Rewrite the sentence (Line 120-122, Page 3)

20. It could be Leaf dry matter (LDM) and stem dry matter (SDM) (Line 142,143, Page 4)

21. Better if write the Title of the Table 1 simple and mention the abbreviations of grasses in foot notes of the Table (Page 4)

22. Recheck lettering for NL and LDM in Table 1 (Page 4)

23. Give proper titles to the Results (throughout) following your Objective e.g. Describe first the results of Growth parameters, then relative accumulation of nutrients and then nutrients efficiency. Avoid congested and noisy way of writing.

24. Conclusion needs improvement in terms of novelty. 

Author Response

Dear Dr. Reviewer,

Follow the manuscript "forests-1761699" for your appreciation. In this new version, all the suggestions made by the reviewers were made, and the questions were answered. Below are all the points-to-point manuscript changes; they were highlighted in red in the text.

Please do not hesitate to contact me for further information. Thanks in advance for your time and consideration.

Kind regards,

Tayna Sousa Duque*

*Corresponding author: [email protected]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer #1:

Reviewer’s comment: 1. I think, you can sum up these two sentences into one i.e.  The objective was to evaluate the growth, relative accumulation of nutrients, and nutritional efficiency of the clonal eucalyptus hybrid I144 (Eucalyptus urophylla × Eucalyptus grandis) competing with invasive grasses such as Megathyrsus maximus cv. BRS Zuri, Urochloa brizantha cv. marandu, Urochloa decumbens cv. Basilisk and the control (eucalyptus plants without competition with weeds). (Line 24-29, Page 1).

Reply: We must express our gratitude to you for the detailed feedback on our manuscript. We believe that the feedback has resulted in a substantially improved paper. Thank you for this suggestion. These corrections were made in the text (lines 25-29).

Reviewer’s comment: 2. Almost all the studied parameters of the clonal Eucalyptus are lower when compared with the three types of grasses, I do not know why are you not adjusting the whole passage in a simple one sentence mentioning that all studied parameters are lower (Line 33-42, Page 1).

Reply: Done. We agree with your assertation. We reformulated the Abstract to be more concise (lines 33-35).

Reviewer’s comment: 3. Line 37-39 and Line 41-42 (Page 1) are similar and redundant.

Reply: Thank you for detailed attention. We corrected this point in the Abstract. Please also see lines 35-38.

Reviewer’s comment: 4. What do you mean by Line 42-43, Page 1.

Reply: We reformulated the Conclusion to be more concise. We want to conclude that competition with grasses reduces the growth, accumulation of nutrients and nutritional efficiency of eucalyptus plants, and thus their productivity. Please also see lines 38-42.

Reviewer’s comment: 5. The Abstract needs more improvement and structured very poor. Moreover, it is lacking in explaining the results of the exact objective of the study. The main conclusive statement is missing in the abstract also. (Page 1).

Reply: Done. We explain in more detail the results and conclusion in the Abstract (lines 33-42).

Reviewer’s comment: 6. Better to include some specific results (values or in percentage) in Abstract about nutritional efficiency and relative accumulation of nutrients as they are the main parts of your subject and objective.

Reply: Done. Thank you for this suggestion. We have added this information in the Abstract “The efficiency of N, P and K uptake and transport of the eucalyptus clonal hybrid was 29.41 and 7.32% lower in competition with U. decumbens than in the control treatments, respectively. The eucalyptus N, P and K utilization efficiency was 13.73; 9.18 and 22.54% lower in competition with M. maximus, U. brizantha and U. decumbens, respectively” (lines 35-38).

Reviewer’s comment: 7. Keywords can be; Clonal eucalyptus, Growth, Invasive grasses, Nutritional efficiency, Relative accumulation of nutrients (Line 45-46, Page 2).

Reply: Done. The Keywords were organized according the suggestions. Please also see lines 43-44.

Reviewer’s comment: 8. Recheck and rewrite the sentence as the word “globally” in relation to “In Brazil (at the beginning of the sentence)’ posing an ambiguous or double meanings. (Line 52-52, Page 2).

Reply: Done. We removed the word “globally” and we rewrite the sentence (lines 50-51).

Reviewer’s comment: 9. All the paragraphs of the “Introduction” part is lacking in consistency. The “Introduction” needs more improvement for its structure. Consistency between sentences and paragraphs are very necessary in relation to your Subject.

Reply: We thank the reviewer for this important observation. We rewrote the Introduction to have more consistency between paragraphs.

Reviewer’s comment: 10. The Introduction must include the significance statement of the study.

Reply: Done. Thank you for this suggestion. We have added this information in the text (lines 66-79).

Reviewer’s comment: 11. The paragraph title “2.1 Location and soil” may be replace with “Study site and soil characteristics” (Line 80, Page 2).

Reply: Done. Thank you for this suggestion. We have replaced the title of paragraph 2.1 with “Study site and soil characteristics” (line 85).

Reviewer’s comment: 12. “Work” needs to be replace with “study” (Line 81, Page 2).

Reply: Done. We removed the word “work”. We added the word “study” on line 86.

Reviewer’s comment: 13. Check the value of pH as pH5.0 is acidic and mostly all nutrients are unavailable at this pH. Confirm whether the pH changed after addition of nutrients? (Line 86, Page 2).

Reply: Yes. After fertilizing the soil, the pH was corrected.

Reviewer’s comment: 14. How about available Nitrogen (N) amounts? (Line 86, Page 2).

Reply: The available nitrogen was estimated from the content of organic matter in the soil. This information has been inserted into the text (line 117).

Reviewer’s comment: 15. Better if mention the amounts, if possible (Line 89, Page 2).

Reply: Done. Thank you for this suggestion. We have added this information in the text (lines 114-117).

Reviewer’s comment: 16. The title “2.3 Conducting the experiment” may replace with “Experimental Layout” (Line 97, Page 3).

Reply: Done. Thank you for this suggestion. We have added this information in the title.

Reviewer’s comment: 17. The paragraphs 2.2 and 2.3 can be summed into a single paragraph with title “Experimental design and layout” (Line 92 and 97, Page 2,3).

Reply: Done. Thank you for this suggestion. We removed the title 2.3 “Conducting the experiment”. We added the title 2.2 “Experimental design and layout” on line 118.

Reviewer’s comment: 18. Rewrite title “2.4 Evaluated parameters” into a meaningful title (Line 109, Page 3).

Reply: Done. Thank you for this suggestion. We removed the title “Evaluated parameters”. We added the title 2.3 “Growth parameters analysis” on line 135.

Reviewer’s comment: 19. Rewrite the sentence (Line 120-122, Page 3).

Reply: Done. We reformulated the sentence “The dry matter of eucalyptus plants was ground in a Willey mill at the Laboratory of Soil Analysis of the Federal University of Viçosa in Viçosa, Minas Gerais, Brazil. This process was carried out to determine the levels of macro and micronutrients”. Please also see lines 146-147.

Reviewer’s comment: 20. It could be Leaf dry matter (LDM) and stem dry matter (SDM) (Line 142,143, Page 4).

Reply: Done. Thank you for this suggestion. We removed the words “dry leaf matter (LDM)” and “stem (SDM)”. We added the words “Leaf dry matter (LDM)” and “stem dry matter (SDM)”. Please also see lines 177-178.

Reviewer’s comment: 21. Better if write the Title of the Table 1 simple and mention the abbreviations of grasses in foot notes of the Table (Page 4).

Reply: Done. Thank you for this suggestion. We mention the abbreviations of grasses in foot notes of the Table 2 in lines 180-181.

Reviewer’s comment: 22. Recheck lettering for NL and LDM in Table 1 (Page 4).

Reply: Done. The letters for NL and LDM were verified in Table 2.

Reviewer’s comment: 23. Give proper titles to the Results (throughout) following your Objective e.g. Describe first the results of Growth parameters, then relative accumulation of nutrients and then nutrients efficiency. Avoid congested and noisy way of writing.

Reply: Done. We agree with your suggestion. The titles of the results were “3.1. Growth parameters”, “3.2. Relative nutrient content” and “3.3. Nutritional efficiency”.

Reviewer’s comment: 24. Conclusion needs improvement in terms of novelty.

Reply: Done. We reformulated the Conclusion to be broader and cite what's new. Please also see lines 275-287. We appreciate this reviewer's suggestions.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

See the attached report

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Dr. Reviewer,

Follow the manuscript "forests-1761699" for your appreciation. In this new version, all the suggestions made by the reviewers were made, and the questions were answered. Below are all the points-to-point manuscript changes; they were highlighted in red in the text.

Please do not hesitate to contact me for further information. Thanks in advance for your time and consideration.

Kind regards,

Tayna Sousa Duque*

*Corresponding author: [email protected]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer #2:

Reviewer’s comment: General comment: Overall, I found the MS has a good study content. However, currently the paper isn’t in the publishable form. The paper thought is clear but structure, write up and language and should be improved to make the paper more readable. Moreover, there are many empty and incomplete statements. There are other flaws too, please see specific comments.

Overall, this manuscript has the potential to get accepted, however, different aspects need massive improvement. I have the following suggestions to improve the paper.

Reply: First of all, we must express our appreciation to you for the detailed feedback on our manuscript. We believe that the feedback has resulted in a substantially improved paper. We have undertaken all the changes.

Reviewer’s comment: 1. I would like to suggest that authors should improve the title, in current form I looks bit empty and not covering all the study objectives, especially the morphological traits.

Reply: Thank you for your suggestion. We reformulated our title to “Growth, nutrient accumulation and nutritional efficiency of a clonal eucalyptus hybrid in competition with grasses”.

Reviewer’s comment: 2. Abstract needs improvements, currently, its looks like a qualitative summary, add some numerical values for fore clarity, moreover I would also like to see a line or two about the concluding remarks.

Reply: Done. We agree with your assertation. We added some numerical values for fore clarity (lines 35-38). Also, we added the concluding remarks.

Reviewer’s comment: 3. Keywords needs massive improvements, add variety of words rather than just species names.

Reply: Done. Thank you for this suggestion. We removed the words “Eucalyptus grandis, Eucalyptus urophylla, Megathyrsus maximus, Urochloa brizantha, Urochloa decumbens”. We added the words “Clonal eucalyptus, Invasive grasses, Nutritional efficiency, Relative accumulation of nutrients, Urochloa decumbens”. Please also see lines 43-44.

Reviewer’s comment: 4. The contribution of the study is unclear in the Introduction. Why this study is carried out? Aims with no clear focus what is investigated and why? Please focus on this and add clearly in the introduction section, as this is very important.

Reply: This study was carried out to test the hypothesis that the interference of weeds in the eucalyptus crop reduces the growth, absorption and accumulation of nutrients in the soil. In addition, research regarding the accumulation of nutrients by eucalyptus plants in competition with grasses should be carried out as they allow understanding the relationships between species and the influence of nutritional accumulation on physiological and growth parameters. We added this information in the text.

Reviewer’s comment: 5. How authors think their study is different from already published studies like this, what make this study an important article?

Reply: Modern eucalyptus genotypes need to be evaluated for weed competition. Grasses compete strongly with eucalyptus seedlings. Our findings show how this competition for nutrients happens and shed light on how it affects nutrient absorption and use. In addition, the study is carried out for the main grass weeds in commercial eucalyptus crops.

Reviewer’s comment: 6. Add the study area figure.

Reply: Done. We added the figure 1 of the study area as suggested.

Reviewer’s comment: 7. Add the reference for soil properties description or authors analyze by themselves?

Reply: We don't analyze by themselves. The analyzes of soil properties were carried out in the laboratory of Soil Analysis Viçosa LTDA., Viçosa, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Please also see lines 96-97.

Reviewer’s comment: 8. The discussion section is in many parts also appears too long, authors can reduce it without losing the meaning and keep it to specific.

Reply: Done. We revised and reduced the discussion. Thank you for this suggestion.

Reviewer’s comment: 9. I would recommend to divide the discussion section into subsections according to major objectives. But for that research objectives should be very clear.

Reply: The Discussion were organized according suggestions. The titles of the Discussion were “4.1. Growth parameters”, “4.2. Relative nutrient content” and “4.3. Nutritional efficiency”.

Reviewer’s comment: 10. The captions can be improved and supplemented with more details. The captions and legends should be self-explanatory. Please improve it.

Reply: Done. The captions were revised and corrected.

Reviewer’s comment: 11. Authors must check the reference style especially in text citations.

Reply: Done. The references and text citations were revised and corrected.

Reviewer’s comment: 12. Language/structure. Please check the compliance of English styles and grammar with the journal standards and rules.

Reply: Thank you for this suggestion. The manuscript was edited for proper English language, grammar, punctuation, spelling, and overall style by one or more of the highly qualified native-speaking English.

Reviewer’s comment: 13. The results of the abstract are difficult to understand. Authors should rephrase the results, better break in simple sentences to make the paper more readable.

Reply: Done. We agree with your suggestion. We reformulated the results of the abstract to be more concise.

Reviewer’s comment: 14. In the conclusion section of abstract, write a line or two mentioning about the impact of this study for scientific community. Moreover, don’t write the same concluding remarks in abstract and conclusion section.

Reply: Thank you for this suggestion. We added more information in the conclusion.

Reviewer’s comment: 15. Results section can be supplemented with more details.

Reply: Done. We added more information in the results section as Figure 2 and 3; and percentages of reduction in nutritional contents (lines 198-202).

Reviewer’s comment: 16. Better to use figures too, rather than only tables.

Reply: Thank you for this suggestion. We included a figure in the Results. Figure 2 is the Height of eucalyptus clonal hybrid I144 (Eucalyptus urophylla × Eucalyptus grandis) in competition with grasses at 110 DAT. Figure 3 is the summary of interferences in the growth and nutritional efficiency of the clonal eucalyptus hybrid I144 (Eucalyptus urophylla × Eucalyptus grandis).

Reviewer’s comment: 17. I recommend to add the correlation between the studied parameter to have a clearer understanding.

Reply: We thank the reviewer for this important recommendation. We have added this information in the text. Please also see lines 215-219 and Figure 3.

Reviewer’s comment: 18. What is cont. in table 2?

Reply: Cont. in table 2 is Control. We removed the word “cont.”. We added the word “Control” in table 3.

Reviewer’s comment: 19. Discussions needs improvements. And it should be more in a scientific way, authors should also discuss the other related published articles in the discussion section and explain how their results are similar or different to them and what can be the potential reasons. Currently, the discussion isn’t appropriate.

Reply: Done. We revised and we improve the discussion. Thank you for this suggestion.

Reviewer’s comment: 20. Highlight the most important results especially the unique ones/novelty and make an in-depth discussion about these important results.

Reply: Done. Thank you for your suggestion. We added this information.

Reviewer’s comment: 21. I would like to see a very much improved and bit more broad conclusion. The abstract and conclusions need a substantial rework.

Reply: Done. We reformulated the Abstract and conclusion to be more broad and in more details.

Reviewer’s comment: 22. There are some empty, incomplete and incorporated sentences throughout the Ms which are bit confusing, and some things are only written as general, please focus more on actual facts than assumptions.

Reply: Thank you for detailed attention. These corrections were made in the text. We appreciate this reviewer's suggestions.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

no