Restoration of Long-Term Monoculture Degraded Tea Orchard by Green and Goat Manures Applications System
, Puleng Letuma 2,3,4, Liaqat Ali 5, Muhammad Tayyab 2, Muhammad Waqas 2,3, Yanchun Li 1,2,3, Weiwei Lin 1,2,3, Sheng Lin 1,2,3,* and Wenxiong Lin 1,2,3,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments:
1. The manuscript addresses an interesting topic.
2. The title is not reading well and it is rather long; the author could provide a more condensed one.
3. The abstract could be improved by adding more practical conclusions and the main findings.
4. Also, the main aims of the current study should be added to the abstract.
5. In line 23 the authors have mentioned “We found that the LF and GM applications contributed to….” The authors should avoid the use of personal pronouns within the body of the paper (e.g. "this paper investigates..." is correct; "I/we investigate..." is incorrect). Please revise the whole manuscript.
6. The global novelty of this study is not highlighted in the Introduction section. Please add a paragraph and mention the global novelty and the main contributions of the current study.
7. The main objectives of the current study are not highlighted clearly in the Introduction section; the authors should clearly outline the main objectives in one paragraph.
8. The current cited references are rather old. The authors should improve the Introduction section by adding recent literature reviews (i.e. 2016-2018).
9. I suggest adding an instant map of the study site (Anxi county Fujian province) to improve the Material and methods section.
10. The Methods section is rather long; the authors shouldn’t exhaustively describe detailed techniques. Too much detail only adds to the reader's confusion.
11. If data was drawn from soil and fresh leaves on May 2016; why it took so long to publish the results?
12. In the Results section Table captions are too long; the authors should either move the info to the table footnote or to the main text.
13. Adding a few sub-headings might improve the overall structure of the Discussion section.
14. In the Discussion section the author should separate the different topics into the same paragraphs. Currently, the same paragraph deals with various topics.
15. The Conclusion section is very short. The main implications of the current study are not highlighted; the author should add 1-2 paragraphs indicating the main implications of the study.
16. The authors should address future research directions. It could be done in one paragraph in the Conclusion section.
17. The authors should highlight how this study is going to be beneficial to the policy makers as well as indicating a few recommendations and suggestions.
18. Some limitations of the research would be useful to any reader, so I recommend adding them to the Conclusion section too.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your response and constructive comments on our manuscript titled “Restoration of long-term monoculture degraded tea orchard by green and goat manures applications system” (sustainability-428206). We are pleased to inform you that we have carefully gone through the manuscript and have made changes according to your valuable comments and suggestions in the revised manuscript. Further point to point response to the reviewer comments are attached with in the word file below.
Kind Regards,
Wenxiong Lin and Yasir arafat
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The work is interesting but it is not written as a scientific work requires.
Material and methods are described as a cookie recipe, thus the descriptions in the present form do not offer a scientific contribution.
Moreover, some concepts are redundant, so they have to be reduced.
Figure and tables quality has to be improved (Table S1. Nutrient content in the green manure (Leguminous crops) and goat manure: TP, TK, TK,
TP, TK,correct in TN, TP in the order of citation; Figure S3 resolution is low).
Last, but not least, the manuscript requires an English language revision.
See comments on the attached pdf file.
The decision is: major revision
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thank you very much for your response and constructive comments on our manuscript titled “Restoration of long-term monoculture degraded tea orchard by green and goat manures applications system” (sustainability-428206). We are pleased to inform you that we have carefully gone through the manuscript and have made changes according to your valuable comments and suggestions in the revised manuscript. Further point to point response to the reviewer comments are below
Point 1. The work is interesting but it is not written as a scientific work requires.
Author response 1. Thank you for your interest in our work. We have carefully revised the paper and rewrite accordingly.
Point 2. Material and methods are described as a cookie recipe, thus the descriptions in the present form do not offer a scientific contribution.
Author response 2. Actually we have explained the material and method section. The material and method section is now shorted and improved in the revised manuscript accordingly .Thanks again for your valuable suggestion.
Point 3. Moreover, some concepts are redundant, so they have to be reduced.
Author response 3. Thanks for your comment. Done in the revised manuscript
Point 4. Figure and tables quality has to be improved (Table S1. Nutrient content in the green manure (Leguminous crops) and goat manure: TP, TK, TK,TP, TK,correct in TN, TP in the order of citation; Figure S3 resolution is low).
Author response 4. Thanks for your comment. Done in the revised supplementary information.
Point 5. Last, but not least, the manuscript requires an English language revision.
Author response 5. Thanks for your comment. Done in the revised manuscript. We have revised our manuscript from native speaker as per your suggestion.
Point 6. See comments on the attached pdf file.
Author response 6. Thanks again for your comment. Done in the revised manuscript
Regards
Wenxiong Lin and Yasir Arafat
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
No further comments.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
We are pleased to inform you that we have carefully gone through the manuscript to make sure and have made changes accordingly to your comments and suggestions in the revised manuscript.
Thanks
Yasir Arafat
Reviewer 2 Report
Now the text is better described, the authors followed the suggested revisions but not in a section of MM as described below.
Moreover, the author Liaqat Ali, is a new one? He was not present in the previous version.
2) In this version many of the suggestions have been accepted; notwithstanding, in the MM section “Preparation and determination of rhizosphere soil sample solution” the text is very different from that in the previous version of the manuscript -
Page 4, lanes 178-184 this version (2) : The soil samples were centrifuged for 30 min at a speed of 14000 rpm. After centrifugation the collected centrifugates were filtered through a 0.45 mm filter (Millex-HV, Millipore) and the pH was then determined. Each 1mL soil solution was finally filter to the chromatographic vials for
HPLC. The chromatographic results were obtained under the same chromatographic conditions as
used for standards, and the low molecular weight organic acid concentration of the samples was
calculated by standard curve obtained from the different concentration of standard of the respective
substances.
Previous version (1): Page 4, lanes 167-172: First accurately weighed 10 g of fresh soil samples placed in 50 mL centrifuge tube. After this add 15 mL ddH2O and shake for 2 min. The next day after standing overnight, oscillation was done in water ultrasonic cleaning instrument for 90 min and shake after every 15 min. Subsequently, transferred supernatant to new 15mL tubes after the end of the centrifuge at 3000 r min-1 in room temperature for 5 min. Whatever supernatant in 15 mL volume up and down several times, mix the extract, with a syringe to absorb a small amount (1mL) over 0.45 µm pore size filter to the chromatographic vials.
So, which is the true method?
Thus, this fact must be clarified before accepting the paper; only minor revision is needed.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
Thank you very much for your constructive comments on our manuscript .
Response 1. Liaqat Ali is not a new one.He was present in the previous version.Only his place and affiliation have changed.
Response 2.Thank you very much.Actually we have tried both the methods.But the previous method was long and the results was not so clear. so the existing method results was good.So,this method is clear and ok. Thanks again for your valuable comment.
Responce 3. we have carefully gone through the manuscript for minor spell check and have made changes accordingly to reviewer’s comments and suggestions in the revised manuscript.
