Assessment of Energy, Dynamic and Economic Balance of Chipping Operation in Poplar Medium Rotation Coppice (MRC) Plantations
, Roberto Fanigliulo 2, Daniele Pochi 2, Laura Fornaciari 2, Renato Grilli 2, Stefano Benigni 2, Francesco Latterini 3 and Giulio Sperandio 2
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This manuscript discusses the exploitation of renewable energy sources, and the wood fuel from agroforestry, a sector that can be developed to contribute to this exploitation. However, economic and environmental sustainability intimately depends on proper wood harvesting and chipping operations. So, were economic and environmental aspects of Medium Rotation Coppice (MRC) were investigated regarding chipping. For this, a small-scale chipper and the tractor were equipped with real-time sensors to monitor time, t (s), fuel consumption, F (cm3), PTO torque, M (daNm), PTO speed, s 22 (min-1); stem diameter, D (mm) during the comminution of 61 poplar plants (gathered in 5 classes 23 according to trunk diameter) grown in MRC system.
The manuscript is organized and presents an introduction, study area, methodology, results and discussion, conclusions, and current references.
The pdf is attached with some suggestions
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thank you for your suggestions. The manuscript has been improved accordingly.
Moreover, during the implementation of the paper, We noticed a mistake in Graph5 which has been replaced with the correct one
Reviewer 2 Report
The research that the authors have conducted is current and useful. The work is a continuation of research published under the title Assessment of Working Performance and Costs of Two Small-Scale Harvesting Systems for Medium Rotation Poplar Plantations in the journal Forests (Forests 2022, 13, 569).
It would be desirable if the chapters Results and Discussion were separated, and through the discussion, more comparisons of the obtained results with the research results of other authors would be made.
Conclusions are not adequately drawn. There is not a single concrete conclusion that emerged from the research results, which is why this chapter needs to be improved.
Figure 1.(b) is not of appropriate resolution and does not show anything new compared to Figure 1.(a), which is why it should be removed or replaced with a new photo with appropriate resolution.
Author Response
Thank you for your valuable suggestions.
The arrangement of Results and Discussions was long-last debated among Authors and we agreed to present them in one chapter. The decision was taken considering the reader would have struggled to figure out the specific discussion associated to a given results since the many graphs produced. Applying the one-chapter solution, it will result easier to follow understand the topic and get the meaning of paragraphs. We would appreciate if the Reviewer would consider this point of view.
The final chapter has been re-written including more findings. Figure 1 has been replaced with high resolution one.
During the implementation of the paper, We noticed a mistake in Figure 5 which has been replaced with the correct one
