Substrate Properties and Fertilizer Rates on Yield Responses of Lettuce in a Vertical Growth System

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper can be accepted after revision.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Reviewer 1 corrections

1. Reconstructed lines 12 – 17 to be more concise:

“Abstract: Urban agriculture in the United States is a steadily rising trend. Agriculture no longer brings only a mental picture of many hundreds of acres of farmland displaced in rural areas, but also a robust local vegetable production system amidst intricate networks of railways, roads, and buildings even in densely populated urban centers. Vertical farming is one common urban agriculture growing technique that has been successfully used to grow many crops, especially leafy vegetables such as lettuce, hence, improving food supply to urban dwellers”

“Abstract: Urban agriculture in the United States is a steadily rising trend. Agriculture is no longer only the horizontal, traditional, soil grown method. Urban agriculture has created ways for inner city growers to be able to farm in a restricted space. Vertical farming is becoming a more common urban agriculture growing technique used to grow crops, specifically leafy vegetables such as lettuce.”

2. Edited citation format on Line 107
3. Title had issues with varieties or cultivars. Therefore, “Varieties” was removed from title.
4. Line 109 – 111: rephrased sentence – “Organic seeds of Bibb and Summer Crisp (varieties Optima and Nevada respectfully) were obtained from High Mowing Seed Company, Vermont, USA”
5. Line 19: removed “Nevada and Bibb varieties”
6. Lines 105 – 108: re-written “Substrate samples were collected prior to planting and physical properties (air space, water holding capacity, total porosity and bulk density) were determined using porometer analysis (n = 3) [13]. Substrate volumetric water content (VWC; m3·m–3) was measured every 15 minutes over the period of one week for each study using Decagon EC-5 sensors and EM50 data loggers (Decagon Devices Inc., Pullman, WA). The experiment was laid in a randomized complete block design with 4 replicates and 4 plants per replicate. Statistical analysis was done with SAS statistical software, version 9.4.”
7. Removed Lines 169 – 170. “Massantini et al. (1988) found better taste, uniformity, color, texture and higher nutritional value in fruits grown in soilless culture than in soil cultivation methods”
8. Removed “Variety” in all figures.
9. Replaced “Bibb” with “Optima” in appropriate sections to be more specific with which variety was used in this research.

Since Nevada is a variety and Bibb is a type, it’s most appropriate to add the specific Bibb variety which is Optima. We worked with 2 types of lettuce (Bibb and Summer Crisp), varieties explained in Materials and Methods.

1. Bibb – variety Optima
2. Summer Crisp – variety Nevada

Reviewer 2 Report

Very good presentation of results, however some mistakes should be corrected: 

L115: paragraph has title about results received in 2018, so comparision with 2019 data not suitable

Fig 1: Delete "Axi"

SI units should be used in the article

Fig 3 no units presented 

Statistical interpretation not clear. Concrete method should be mentioned. How mean values should  compared in figures should be noted in figures and tables notes.

Author Response

Reviewer 2 corrections: “My interest on this work was mainly related with the vertical growth system, which could be very interesting to discuss, but the authors fail to elaborate the possible implication of this system in the crop response. In accordance the discussion section is very poor and superficial.”

1. Inserted more material in the Introduction section: Lines 70 – 88.
2. Inserted more information in Discussion section: Lines 198 – 209.
3. Inserted more discussion information: Lines 216 – 223.

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper report a simple experiment aiming the effect of different substrate mixture on lettuce growth. There is a large pool of data on this subject, so the work presented here, lacks originality. My interest on this work was mainly related with the vertical growth system, which could be very interesting to discuss, but the  authors fail to elaborate the possible implication of this system in the crop response. In accordance the discussion section is very poor and superficial.

Author Response

Reviewer 3 corrections

1. Line 115: Removed “and spring 2019” due to this section only focusing on 2018 trial
2. Removed “Axi” in Figure 1
3. Converted graph units to SI units: used grams (g)

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Modified

Author Response

Revised manuscript (highlighted text) is atatched.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf