Changes in Chemical Properties of Banana Pseudostem, Mushroom Media Waste, and Chicken Manure through the Co-Composting Process
, Susilawati Kasim 1,*, Khairul Md. Alam 2,3,4, Adibah Mohd Amin 1, Tan Geok Hun 5 and Mohammad Amdadul Haque 2,6
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors,
the work is very insightful and advances the state of knowledge. The results are well presented. Nevertheless, some issues must be improved.
- In the final paragraph of section 1 the aim of the work is mentioned, but this description of the goal of the work should be done in a clearer way with more precision.
- Please provide more details about the sourcing of the used substrates, including the quantities collected, the points of collection, how the material was transported and stored etc. (Section 2.1).
- The research design is only rudimentarily mentioned as part of section 2.1. A separate section (sub-section in section 2) should be amended to describe the experimental design. Also, please specify if the indicated mixtures of the materials are in fresh weight. Currently this is not clear.
- Please specify how the 250 g urea were added to each pile (section 2.1): after creating the piles (on top???), before, etc.
- Table 1 (and the corresponding info in the text in 2.2) refers to the raw materials. This seems to be more suitably placed in section 2.1. and not in 2.2.
- Furthermore, in Table 1, please can you amend the standard deviations of the reported values?
- In 2.3, please add details how the temperature measurement was conducted. Including the used equipment, type of temperature measurement cell, etc. Please also provide at least basic information how the compost moisture was measured, not only a reference to literature.
- In the section “Materials and Methods”, the description of the germination tests must be amended.
- Presentation of results: what do the error bars in the figures represent? Standard deviations of several samples taken? How many samples? Etc? Please specify what is shown with the error bars. Please also specify in the section “Material and Methods” (section 2.2) how many samples were taken in each sampling round, currently it is only mentioned that a 300 g bulk sample was collected from different places.
- The section “Conclusions” could be strengthened by amending more specific information and highlighting the relevance of the findings.
- Unit “ton/tons” (section 1) is ambiguous because it has different meanings in different countries and regions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ton). It should be specified that you mean “metric tons” or be substituted by the accepted version “tonne/tonnes”.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper addresses a topic of interest related to the management of agricultural waste through composting. It is properly structured and has an adequate balance of references. The analyzes and methods used are relevant for this type of study. I believe that it may be of interest to the academic community. Some minor comments are as follows:
1. Please clarify how the substrate mixtures were defined? (abstract and methodology).
2. Please clarify, why was the turning every 7 days? In the first days a greater supply of oxygen is required. (abstract and methodology)
3. What was the size of the compost piles? How many piles per treatment?
4. Why was the same amount of urea added? (Each treatment has a different C / N).
5. Why was there coverage of the piles? How does this promote gas exchange?
6. In Table 1 include the standard deviation.
7. In graphs, except for temperature, I suggest using dotted lines. It is not known what happened between measurements (every 7 days).
8. Are the temperature graphs an average of the three piles measurements? Are they an average of the day and night measurement?
9. What is attributed to the fact that no greater influence of the humidification of the batteries is observed in the moisture behavior?
10. In the discussion, the explanation of the duration of the phases between the different treatments can be expanded.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors,
The manuscript now is comprehensive, and the contents very well presented. A few minor issues, however, should be further improved.
- In Section 2.1 (“Materials collection, preparation, and pile management”), when describing the pre-treatment of the substrate: please amend technical details of the “electric crusher”.
- Same section, some sentences later: please correct typing erroring word “feedtock" (feedstock).
- Same section, a lit bit later, it is stated: “The piles were protected with a blue-colored plastic canvas …”. It does not seem relevant information that the plastic canvas was blue-colored. Instead, more relevant information should be added (e.g. transparent/not transparent, thickness?, water-resistant?)
- The manuscript should be read for typing errors, missing words, duplicate words and similar issues. As an example, sequence “the the” appears in several figure captions.
Author Response
Please see the attached file
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
