Soil Organic Carbon and Labile Carbon Pools Attributed by Tillage, Crop Residue and Crop Rotation Management in Sweet Sorghum Cropping System

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Title: Soil Organic Carbon and Labile Carbon Pools Attributed by Tillage, Crop Residue and Crop Rotation Management in Sweet Sorghum Cropping System Dear authors,

Dear authors,

The topic of your paper is interesting, however it is a highly studied topic; and for this reason, to contribute something new requires a broad search for information and an approach in which innovative results are obtained. The authors should work to improve this proposal considerably: provide some new data, and design a suitable paper.

There are some aspects which should be improved. Following are some recommendations for authors to consider:

1.-Introduction:

Please argue more why this study may contribute with new knowledge. Regarding originality, some points could be developed in the introduction section: Please, clarify why your paper is important. What are you going to discover? Why is this topic important? Who is going to earn more with your results about conservation agriculture, land use?.

2.- M&M:

Line 111: there are different fonts and font sizes (Review the layout of the text)

3.- Results and Discussion:

In general, the results are scarce for a publication of this level. You must develop the research further, add new variables and contrast the results. You need to provide more data, and work with them ... compare them with the existing literature and conclude what is the new knowledge that your study provides.

Line 124. Table 1. Is the table really necessary? It does not provide knowledge except for 2 - 3 values ​​other than Ns.

A greater contribution of data is necessary, and a greater discussion and comparison with the existing literature.

4.- Conclusions

Limited findings and discussion section relating to the literature. Even the study results were not fully discussed.

It would be interesting some additional managerial implications in line with the findings of the study. Practical implications?  Something to inspire future research or implications for practice.

Best regards,

Author Response

Please see the attachment. Thanks

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

In my opinion the article is very interesting and useful. Moreover, the experimental is well conducted. The article might be of technical and practical interest to many readers of this journal (mainly farmer and researcher involved in agronomy field). For these reasons, I believe that this paper could be accepted for publication, but only after Minor Revisions.

Here following the corrections that need to be made:

Title: isn’t better …attributed to tillage, crop residue and…. ?

Abstract:

Line 14: regarded ?! replace with considered

Lines 17-18-19: please divide these lines into 2 or 3 sentences to be clearer

Introduction:

Line 32: in South Africa, like in other countries, offers..

Line 34: I definitely agree with you statement, in particular regarding the lower agronomic input. However, you need to cite a paper to support this statement, in particular for “like in other countries”. So please add this paper here and in the references list (and scale up the old references of one position)

…to smallholder at low agronomic inputs [1]

[1] Guerrini, L., Napoli, M., Mancini, M., Masella, P., Cappelli, A., Parenti, A., & Orlandini, S. (2020). Wheat grain composition, dough rheology and bread quality as affected by nitrogen and sulfur fertilization and seeding density. Agronomy, 10(2), 233.

Line 38: benefits

Line 39: replace is not fully know with : were not examined in depth.

Line 48: remove the use of a. start with: Less intensive….

Lines 50- 52: please rephrase: The extent and the rate of SOC increase when NT is adopted and varies according to cropping system [19,22-24], soil type [25-27], climate [13,28,29] and other agronomic management practices [25,30,31].

Line 53: replace a significant with an important.

line 63: in my opinion this introduction is incomplete and too short. In particular you made a good overview of SOC and LOC, but you didn’t mentioned the effects of the lacking in soil organic carbon and other elements (like nitrogen for example) on the cereal quality, on flours composition, dough rheology, and bread characteristics.

For this reason, before to start with the aim of the study, I strongly suggest you to add a couple sentences which highlight that minerals lacking in the soil not only affect the quality of the soil, but also cereal, flour, dough, and bakery products quality.

Please add this sentence After line 64 …change in LOC resulting from land use exist in literature. “Moreover, lacking of organic carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and other elements in the soil significantly influence sorghum and other cereals composition [1], cereal milling and flour quality [43, 44], dough kneading process and dough rheology [45, 46], and finally, sorghum-based and others gluten-free bakery products [47].” Thus, the aim of this study was to determine the effect of tillage, crop rotation, and crop residue management on SOC and LOC pools dynamics in a sweet-sorghum production.

Please add these papers to the references list and scale up of five positions the old references.

[43] Cappelli, A., Mugnaini, M., Cini, E. (2020) Improving roller milling technology using the break, sizing, and reduction systems for flour differentiation. LWT–Food Science and Technology, 133, 110067.

[44] Cappelli, A., Guerrini, L., Cini, E., & Parenti, A. (2019). Improving whole wheat dough tenacity and extensibility: A new kneading process. Journal of Cereal Science, 90, 102852.

[45] Cappelli, A., Bettaccini, L., & Cini, E. (2020). The kneading process: A systematic review of the effects on dough rheology and resulting bread characteristics, including improvement strategies. Trends in Food Science & Technology, 104, 91–101.

[46] Cappelli, A., Canessa, J., & Cini, E. (2020). Effects of CO2 snow addition during kneading on thermoregulation, dough rheological properties, and bread characteristics: a focus on ancient and modern wheat cultivars. International Journal of Refrigeration, 117, 52–60.

[47] Cappelli, A., Oliva, N., Cini, E. (2020). A Systematic Review of Gluten-Free Dough and Bread: Dough Rheology, Bread Characteristics, and Improvement Strategies. Applied Sciences, 10(18), 6559.

Line 67: sorghum is a very important crop used in food productions in many countries, so please do not only refer to biofuel in the introduction. Please rephrase like this :

Although the goal in biofuel and food crops production is to maximize the harvested aboveground biomass [48],……

Materials and methods:

Line 82 and 83: positions? You mean portions, please correct.

Line 100: remove content, not necessary.

Line 108: was used in the experimental trials.

Line 111: you mean the software jmp 14? Please rephrase: “The JMP 14 software was… moreover please specify the type of anova you performed (one-way, two-way, multi-way..) and the tested factors.

Results:

Line 162: I see two problems here: 1) corrected? You mean correlated? Please correct. 2) to each what? To each other? Please specify.

Discussion:

Line 174: Tillage seems to be able to alters….

Line 181: CT treatment (Table 2). This is similar to previous …

Line 183: Please rephrase. Our findings are in contrast with Zhao et al….

Line 195: replace stimuli with stimulate

Line 196: is mainly due to residues offering nutrients for microbial growth and activity.

Line 201: for microbial growth and activity, which…

Line 203: were positively correlated to SOC. This is in line with….

Line 204: replace proposes with suggests

Line 209: previously

Conclusions:

Line 216: replace propose with suggest

Line 220: please add two or three sentences regarding the future prospect of your research and regarding what need to be investigated in the near future to increase the knowledge regarding this important topic.

Author Response

Please see the attachment. Thanks 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors

The papers lacks of proper figures (see comments attached)

And I think the rationale and the discussion need to be improved

See here attached the main comments

The figure's issue is compulsory as you are submitting to a good journal
Sincerely

Author Response

Please see the attachment. Thank you

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Regarding Manuscript ID: sustainability-993578

It is a nice topic about soil organic carbon which is very important for judging about quality of soils.   I would like to recommend accept after addressing some comment as presented as follows:

• The literature review seems not enough. Please add some more linked topic.
• Figure 1 should be revised, as it does not show the differences among treatments obviously.
• Please complete the Table 2
• More details should be added in conclusion section. In addition, I would see some suggestion in this regard for future study.
• Please delete references that are not used in the discussion.    

Author Response

Please see the attachment. Thank you 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Title: Soil Organic Carbon and Labile Carbon Pools Attributed by Tillage, Crop Residue and Crop Rotation Management in Sweet Sorghum Cropping System Dear authors,

Dear authors,

I thank the authors for this review work, which satisfies most of my concerns about the article.

1.-Introduction:

Now OK

2.- M&M:

Line 111: now OK

3.- Results and Discussion:

Now OK.

Line 124. Table 1. Now OK.

4.- Conclusions

Now OK

There is an issue that must be taken into account, with special attention. Please be selective, but representative with referencing and include no more than 50-55 citations for a regular paper.

In a paper 6-7 pages long, 83 citations are too many. You already submitted a list of 70 citations in the previous version, and now you have added another dozen. Some excessively cited authors are particularly noteworthy. You have added 5 quotes from Cappelli et al., are you sure that these citations are relevant to the present work? Are they all necessary?

An excess of citations or use of citations not necessary for a study, detracts quality from a work and compromises the quality in which it is published. Quality indices are necessary to contrast scientific advances; and the journals take care to keep them at the highest levels.

Please reconsider selecting the list of references and removing those that are not necessary.

Best regards,

Author Response

Authors wanna thank the reviewer for the inputs and comments which were used improve the quality of the manuscripts. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.