An Accelerated Test Method for Evaluating the Performance of Wood Pole Fumigants

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Line 77 – what was approx. sizes of particles ?

Line 75 – what about wood samples ? in my opinion some information regarding wood should br included in this subchapter

Line 110 -What was wood MC? What was the average annual ring width and share of latewood? What was the wood density?

Fig 7 - it would be better to present the graph in grayscale

Line  233 - Has the measurement of yellowness using the true color measurement method been considered?

the article's weak points include:

• few references used, even though there are many texts on wood protection, including in contact with the ground
• lack of comparison of the results obtained with those obtained by other authors, even if these were only laboratory tests
• single repetition due to the sampling location and sample treatment, which makes it impossible to perform statistical tests and draw precise conclusions the conclusions
• the conclusions in the reviewer's opinion are only a summary of the preliminary field research carried out

Author Response

Responses in attached document

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The topic of the article is interesting, and the introduction and methodology are well-written and structured. However, the results and discussion section is poorly discussed and could be improved.

Lines 117-118: The methodology states that preservatives were applied "in a method simulating an actual field application," but no details are provided.

Lines 147-149: The phrase "The degree of yellowing of the fumigant was used as a measure of decomposition" is vague. Did the authors use any quantitative approach, such as colorimetric analysis, to measure the intensity of yellowing? If not, this assessment remains highly subjective.

Lines 162-170: The discussion on accelerant penetration into dazomet crystals is entirely qualitative, and a visual analysis alone is often insufficient to understand the complexity of the presented behavior. Given this context, the authors could at least compare these results with others available in the literature.

Lines 180-185: "Dazomet granules in Formulation 1 were oblong and appeared mostly as..." Here, the morphologies are presented, but the authors do not provide a relevant discussion on this topic. How could this difference in shape impact the penetration of copper naphthenate? Are these the expected morphologies?

Figure 5: The scale in Figure 5 is difficult to see and is presented in "px". Please use SI units.

Lines 217-222: The variability of results (high COV) could be better discussed, possibly including a scatter plot to illustrate patterns more effectively.

Line 262: The citation contain a wrong link "file:///C:/Users/..." 

 

Author Response

Responses are in the attached document.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

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Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Responses are in the attached document.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf