Influence of Tillage and Cropping Systems on Soil Properties and Crop Performance under Semi-Arid Conditions
, Khalid S. Alshallash 2,*, Khadiga Alharbi 3,*, Salah A. Okasha 4, Mohammed Fenni 5, Abdelhamid Mekhlouf 5, Bilal Fortas 5,6, Keirieddine Hamsi 5, Kamel Nadjem 1, Abdennour Belagrouz 7, Elsayed Mansour 8,* and Mahfoud Mekhlouf 9Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Editor,
Recently I have reviewed manuscript entitled “Influence of Tillage and Cropping Systems on Soil Properties and Crop Performance under Semi-Arid Conditions” in the journal “Sustainability”. Very important and innovative case has been presented in this study, and approach is focused. Although this manuscript is overall well written, however minor typing, and scientific mistakes have been found that need to be corrected that mostly they appear as selected/highlighted.
The manuscript can be accepted with minor revisions suggested. The required corrections are
as follows;
Abstract:
1) Please remove the mistakes in highlighted text.
Introduction:
2) Line No. 35, please insert comma at point shown as highlighted.
Materials and methods:
3) Single bracket instead of double bracket and single space before and after the = sign at line No. 105.
4) Single spacing i.e 0 - 7, and 7 - 15 cm needs like this throughout the manuscript shown as highlighted text.
5) Italicize p throughout the manuscript and single space is needed to insert on both sides of ≤ sign.
Results:
6) Please italicize p throughout the manuscript while describing as probability sign.
7) Line No. 198, single spacing is needed to insert e.g. 0 – 10.
8) Please italicize p. Moreover, write like < 0.001 with single space in between throughout the document.
9) I think here you need to replace "cropping system" with "conservation tillage" at line 248.
10) Need to elaborate and describe standard optimal levels/limits of soil nutrients for specific crops in the region in table for soil nutrients.
11) In crop performance at line No. 248, you are mentioning that CT has higher grain yield in comparison to RT and NT, what is mechanism behind it. As data is showing that CT has weak nutrient contents as compared with RT and NT while on the other hand CT higher grain yield, in comparison to RT and NT. Please further explain mechanism if you can. If you can display nutrients up taken by plants that were optimized or improved by NT or RT as compared with CT and moreover that contributed in better crops growth as well as higher grain yield in NT and RT. This will help to further elaborate the mechanism of higher growth and yields. By doing this research can be more beneficial to stakeholders, growers and scientists for further studies and growing community and recommending institutes.
Discussion:
12) In contrast to soil nutrients in NT and RT were greater than CT, the crop performance you are mentioning that CT has greater grain yield as compared with RT and NT. As no doubt, soil nutrients contribute largely in grain yield mainly only if they are also up taken by plants also to suitable level. Discussing plants nutrients up taken from various cropping systems and tillage further will clearly explain mechanism behind crop improvements by specific tillage system in combination with certain cropping system. If you are able to explain about nutrients up taken, you can discuss those.
13) Need to write as [16, 40 - 42], Similarly, care for appropriate spacing where needed on line No. 288 and throughout the manuscript.
14) Should also discuss optimal, maximum and minimum limits of nutrients in soil for various crops studied. Also compare, which type tillage and cropping system maintains nutrients in soil within resulted in nutrients in optimal limits in the region for that specific crop.
Conclusions:
Conclude about mechanism further clearly behind increase in grain yield in CT in various tillage in different cropping systems.
References:
15) It is suggested that please cross-check citation and references. Check if citation and references
are on same style and according to Sustainability style throughout the manuscript.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Editor,
We would like to thank you and the reviewers for the time and efforts devoted to our manuscript entitled “Influence of Tillage and Cropping Systems on Soil Properties and Crop Performance under Semi-arid Conditions” (Sustainability-1873691). We have revised the manuscript according to the comments and suggestions pointed out by the reviewers. We have addressed the comments of the reviewers in point-by-point below in red color; in addition, we have highlighted all the associated changes made to the manuscript using track changes.
Yours sincerely,
Authors
Reviewer 1
Dear Editor,
I have reviewed the manuscript entitled “Influence of Tillage and Cropping Systems on Soil Properties and Crop Performance under Semi-Arid Conditions” in the journal “Sustainability”. Very important and innovative case has been presented in this study, and the approach is focused. Although this manuscript is overall well written, however minor typing, and scientific mistakes have been found that need to be corrected that mostly appear as selected/highlighted.
Re: We would like to thank Reviewer 1 for his/her time dedicated to our manuscript. We highly appreciate his/her positive assessment of our work, encouraging words, and constructive comments for improving our manuscript.
The manuscript can be accepted with minor revisions suggested. The required corrections are as follows;
Abstract
1) Please remove the mistakes in highlighted text.
Re: Done as suggested
Introduction
2) Line No. 56, please insert comma at point shown as highlighted.
Re: The comma has been added as requested please (line 62 in the revised version).
Materials and methods
3) Single bracket instead of double bracket and single space before and after the = sign at line No. 105.
Re: Done as suggested (line 125 in the revised version)
4) Single spacing i.e 0 - 7, and 7 - 15 cm needs like this throughout the manuscript shown as highlighted text.
Re: Done as suggested in line 126 as well as throughout the manuscript
5) Italicize p throughout the manuscript and single space is needed to insert on both sides of ≤ sign.
Re: Done as suggested in line 154 as well as throughout the manuscript
Results
6) Please italicize p throughout the manuscript while describing as probability sign.
Re: Done as suggested throughout the manuscript
7) Line No. 198, single spacing is needed to insert e.g. 0 – 10.
Re: Done as suggested in line 221 as well as throughout the manuscript
8) Please italicize p. Moreover, write like < 0.001 with single space in between throughout the document.
Re: Done as suggested throughout the manuscript
9) I think here you need to replace "cropping system" with "conservation tillage" at line 248.
Re: “cropping system” has been replaced by “conventional tillage” (line 292)
10) Need to elaborate and describe standard optimal levels/limits of soil nutrients for specific crops in the region in table for soil nutrients.
Re: We would like to thank the Reviewer for his suggestion. But to our knowledge, the optimum levels of soil nutrients are not identified for the studied region. But more explanations have been added to the discussion (lines 317-333).
11) In crop performance at line No. 248, you are mentioning that CT has higher grain yield in comparison to RT and NT, what is the mechanism behind it. As data shows that CT has weak nutrient contents as compared with RT and NT while on the other hand CT higher grain yield, in comparison to RT and NT. Please further explain the mechanism if you can. If you can display nutrients up taken by plants that were optimized or improved by NT or RT as compared with CT and moreover that contributed to better crops growth as well as higher grain yield in NT and RT. This will help to further elaborate the mechanism of higher growth and yields. By doing this research can be more beneficial to stakeholders, growers and scientists for further studies and growing community and recommending institutes.
Re: We thank the reviewer for this interesting suggestion. But we did not address the nutrient uptake by plants. Our objective was to assess agronomic performance to explore how the agronomic traits are affected by different tillage and cropping systems. A paragraph has been added to the discussion section to explain the hypothetical reasons behind the superiority of CT over NT based on the obtained results and relevant references (lines 363-372).
Discussion
12) In contrast to soil nutrients in NT and RT were greater than CT, the crop performance you are mentioning that CT has greater grain yield as compared with RT and NT. As no doubt, soil nutrients contribute largely in grain yield mainly only if they are also up taken by plants also to suitable level. Discussing plants nutrients up taken from various cropping systems and tillage further will clearly explain mechanism behind crop improvements by specific tillage system in combination with certain cropping system. If you are able to explain about nutrients up taken, you can discuss those.
Re: More explanations have been added to the discussion section to explain the hypothetical reasons behind the superiority of CT over NT based on the obtained results and relevant references (lines 363-372).
13) Need to write as [16, 40 - 42], Similarly, care for appropriate spacing where needed on line No. 288 and throughout the manuscript.
Re: Thanks so much for your suggestion, we understand the concern raised by Reviewer but the reference follows the Sustainability style without distances between numbers.
14) Should also discuss optimal, maximum and minimum limits of nutrients in soil for various crops studied. Also compare, which type tillage and cropping system maintains nutrients in soil within resulted in nutrients in optimal limits in the region for that specific crop.
Re: Please see the response to question number 10.
Conclusions
Conclude about mechanism further clearly behind increase in grain yield in CT in various tillage in different cropping systems.
Re: More information has been added as suggested (line 380-386).
References:
15) It is suggested that please cross-check citations and references. Check if citations and references are in the same style and according to the Sustainability style throughout the manuscript.
Re: The references have been carefully revised as suggested
Reviewer 2 Report
please find the attached file for my comments
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Editor,
We would like to thank you and the reviewers for the time and efforts devoted to our manuscript entitled “Influence of Tillage and Cropping Systems on Soil Properties and Crop Performance under Semi-arid Conditions” (Sustainability-1873691). We have revised the manuscript according to the comments and suggestions pointed out by the reviewers. We have addressed the comments of the reviewers in point-by-point below in red color; in addition, we have highlighted all the associated changes made to the manuscript using track changes.
Yours sincerely,
Authors
Reviewer 2:
Please find the attached file for my comments
Re: We would like to thank Reviewer 2 for his/her time dedicated to our manuscript. We greatly appreciate the comment provided by reviewer 2 to improve the quality of the manuscript. All comments were followed as suggested and all our corrections/modifications were track changed.
conservation agriculture does not mitigate it by it self, it helps to mitigate. I would suggest changing "CA is proposed to mitigate..." to "CA helps to mitigate...."
Re: Modified as suggested (Line 25)
check the language here please
Re: Revised and modified (line 28)
what does crop performance mean here? does it indicate crop yield? crop growth? above ground biomass?
Re: We mean agronomic traits, the sentence has been modified (Lines 29-30)
change this to continuous wheat (CW)
Re: modified as suggested (Line 31)
abstract is too short and need more numbers and discussions.
Re: The abstract has been improved and more results have been added
Inappropriate to use these terms in scientific papers
Re: Modified as suggested (Line 47)
The introduction should contain what is known in previous literature, what is missing, what this study will bring, what exactly this study is looking for, and why this study is important to do. the structure of introduction must be improved.
The introduction has been revised and more information has been added
Please explain the design in detail. a map would be helpful in supplementary
Re: More details have been added (Line 92-95) and a layout for the experiment has been added to the supplementary materials (Figure S1).
If main plot is 20 m width how to put that in 6 m width splits?
Supplementary Figure S1 clarifies this aspect
What is the depth
Re: The depth of reduced tillage has been added (line 100)
When the fertilizer was applied to NT?
More details on fertilization have been added (104-107)
Please explain the details of water infiltration
Re: More details on determining water infiltration (133-136) and the nutrient determination (112-120) have been added
why 3 meters? that too short. how many rows of crops per plot?
Each subplot had six rows; we counted the number of plants that emerged on two rows of three meters at each subplot.
Please explain in detail about how tukey anova was set? that is a very tricky test. what is fixed effect? what is random? how the split were set in statistics? can it analyze split plot design? why not t test which is better for this kind of works.
Re: Analysis of variance was run according to the split-plot design, considering the tillage system (main plots) and cropping system (subplots) as fixed factors. Then, Tukey HSD test was applied to significantly separate the studied treatments. This is the appropriate analysis for our data (three treatments within two factors and nine interactions), not the T-test which is used for comparing just two treatments.
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript present interesting results concerning the soil quality and carbon sequestration using different tillage (no tillage) and management practices for long time of experimentation. Likewise, the authors highlights in their study the difference between the crop rotation and the monocropping. The subject of this work is interesting but there are some points that need to revise:
It would be convenient to include the name of the tested variety of crops.
It would be convenient if he had tested different varieties of the species on which he has worked.
I think that the authors can improve the format of results demonstration. The authors can highlight better the importance of the results obtained.
In Discussion, we suggest to authors to discuss the differences in soil nutrients (N, P, K) between different tillage in their discussion. The results of table 1 showed interesting difference of these elements in 0-10 cm.
The authors will said we think that agricultural practices can help a lot in reduction of CO2 emission and the protection of the environment. We suggest the authors to give to this advantage a little focus in their study (discussion–conclusion) and add details in this regard.
Consider extending the conclusions and adding a Future works paragraph. Finally, the topic of this manuscript is interesting; but authors must improve the presentation of their results and discussion.
Author Response
Dear Editor,
We would like to thank you and the reviewers for the time and efforts devoted to our manuscript entitled “Influence of Tillage and Cropping Systems on Soil Properties and Crop Performance under Semi-arid Conditions” (Sustainability-1873691). We have revised the manuscript according to the comments and suggestions pointed out by the reviewers. We have addressed the comments of the reviewers in point-by-point below in red color; in addition, we have highlighted all the associated changes made to the manuscript using track changes.
Yours sincerely,
Authors
Reviewer 3
The manuscript present interesting results concerning the soil quality and carbon sequestration using different tillage (no tillage) and management practices for long time of experimentation. Likewise, the authors highlights in their study the difference between the crop rotation and the monocropping. The subject of this work is interesting but there are some points that need to revise:
Re: We would like to thank Reviewer 3 for his/her time dedicated to our manuscript. We highly appreciate his/her positive assessment of our work and constructive comments for improving our manuscript.
It would be convenient to include the name of the tested variety of crops.
Re: The used varieties have been added (lines 96-97)
It would be convenient if he had tested different varieties of the species on which he has worked.
Re: This could be a future perspective for assessing different genotypes under different tillage and cropping systems
I think that the authors can improve the format of results demonstration. The authors can highlight better the importance of the results obtained.
Re: The presentation of results has been improved, more figures have been added, the text has been revised and the discussion has been improved.
In Discussion, we suggest to authors to discuss the differences in soil nutrients (N, P, K) between different tillage in their discussion. The results of table 1 showed interesting difference of these elements in 0-10 cm.
Re: More explanations have been added (lines 317-333)
The authors will said we think that agricultural practices can help a lot in the reduction of CO2 emission and the protection of the environment. We suggest the authors to give to this advantage a little focus in their study (discussion–conclusion) and add details in this regard.
Re: More explanations have been added to the discussion (lines 346-356)
Consider extending the conclusions and adding a Future works paragraph. Finally, the topic of this manuscript is interesting; but the authors must improve the presentation of their results and discussion.
Re: The presentation of the results have been improved, more figure and supplementary materials have been added, the conclusion has been revised and more information has been added. Thanks so much for your constructive comments on improving our manuscript.
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
accept in present form.
