Variability in Soil Parent Materials at Different Development Stages Controlled Phosphorus Fractions and Its Uptake by Maize Crop
, Jie Yang 1, Jiannan Li 1, Sajid Mehmood 1, Wenjie Liu 1, Jiechang Weng 3,* and Weidong Li 1,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Variability in Soil Parent Materials at Different Development 2 Stages Controlled Phosphorus Fractions and its Uptake by 3 Maize Crop.
## Title change suggested.
##Abstract: Ok. However, it is better to avoid the term “Jiang and Gu fractionation scheme” or replace with suitable alternative.
## Keywords: OK
Introduction: OK
Materials and Methods
##Line 73: “kistan, formed from four separate parent materials” re write it.
##Results and Discussion
Line 229: “ Memon et al., 2012 who reported higher organic P in..” Follow the instruction.
The manuscript is well written and represented. However, (i) correlation with maize growth and yield attributes and (ii) role of other cationic and anionic species in P dynamics in three different soil need to be discussed in details. I am suggesting A MINOR REVISION.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
A very detailed research about the effect of the soils depth and parent materials on P distribution, which could help us to know the relationship of soil phosphorus fractions with phosphorus uptake. A tip: the abstract should be condensed.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments on the manuscript: „Variability In Soil Parent Material at Different Development Stages Controlled Phosporus Fractions and its Uptake by Maize Crop” by Mohsin Mahmood et al. subjected to MDPI Sustainability Journal.
Introduction insufficiently describes the scientific problem. There are many publications in the world literature on P uptake by maize depending on soil variety. The authors should study the available literature more carefully. Sentences from lines 75-104 characterizing soil samples should be placed in the Introduction. In the materials and methods section, only the soil type, location of origin, and basic parameters should be included.
The methodology should include all the details that would allow another researcher to repeat the experiment.
Soil sampling - the kind/type of instrument and method of sampling was not provided; the weight of soil collected and how the samples were standardized was not provided. How was the organic matter content estimated? What was the pH of the soils? Stating that the pH of soil was great er that 7.0 is not sufficient. What does it mean that the soils had different weathering stages? How was it messured?
Soil Phosphorus Fractionation – well esteblished methods (Jiang and Gu) not known for other scientists should be briefly described.
Sub –chapters 2.3, 2.4, 2.5 and 2.6– All the types and producers of equipment should be given (shaker, centrifuge). State all the conditions of the experiment you are conducting. Shaker - rpm, temperature; Centrifuge - rpm and temperature etc. Give all the guipment producers names and country of origin of all the used chemicals.
Editing and language errors
Keywords: the word "Soil" should not be bolded; the method name should not be in Keywords as Jiang and Gu fractionation scheme is not generally known. "fractionation" should be left out.
Decide about wording : ex ample Alluvium, alluvium, alluvial throughout the manuscript text…..
Please pay attention to the notation of the chemical formulas of the substances and reagents used, e.g. NaHCO3, NH4F, C6H5Na3O4 ×2H2O etc.
Please correct temperature units oC (Line 152, Line 160 and further)
Text from lines 174-180 should be removed as this is the Instruction for the Authors.
Formatting of the literature should follow the guidelines of Sustainability magazine.
Since the figures are similar, they should have the same formatting. However, they differ in size, resolution, location of the legend, and some have incorrect captions on the axes. Figures should have a caption that tells what is in them and not a short conclusion. It would be better to create 1 or 2 summary tables of results instead of Figures 1-9.
Table 1 does not indicate which results relate to a particular soil depth. If it is marked with letters a, b please put it In legend or optionally give this information in a footnote.
Table 2 contains editing errors . Use the TAB key to put the unit in the middle of the table (it would be better to put the unit in the table legend). Please note the incorrect notation of depths 0-10 and 10-25 or instead of 0-10 and 0-25.
Figure 11 should have a legend " Correlation coefficients between.............." followed by the description about arrows, thicknesses of lines etc.....
Figure 12 "PCA analysis of.............."
Authors Contributions: Please check the instructions for Authors and fill this section accordingly.
Lines 544-564 contain Instructions for Authors. Fil lit accordingly It it does nor Apple to Ur work please remove the whole lines.
Literature should be formatted according to Sustainability journal requirements
In its current form, the article is not suitable for publication in Sustainability journal. I leave the decision to resubmit the manuscript to the editor
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
It is better (picture captions), but the English language is still poor.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
