Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript explains “Organomineral fertilization associated with inoculation of R. tropici and co-inoculation of A. brasilense in common bean”. The English language of the manuscript should be improved. After a careful review, I found this work interesting and worth publishing in the Sustainability. I propose this work can be published after revision as follows:

·         The title of the manuscript should be modified and specified to your results in the title.

·         In abstracts, which crops ensure sustainability. Kindly specify your crop.

·         In abstracts, kindly explain your results briefly to deliver a clear view of your manuscript. Also, give a clear conclusion/ suggestion on the basis of your results.

·         Kindly keep space between different words in whole manuscript.

·         In the formula, kindly use super/subscript for formulas like “CO2” to “CO₂” and “ha-1” to “ha^-1”

·         Kindly authors use only abbreviations in the whole manuscript after explaining the abbreviation of words.

·         In lines 65-66, explain the benefits of BNF instead of only using a term.

·         In material and methods, kindly write your scheme like this 3x4x3.

·         Have you only applied “organomineral formulation 02-18-10 (600 kg ha-1)” at the sowing time?

·         Kindly explain the V4 stage for beans in your experiment.

·         In Line 136: kindly correct fertilizer application from 2500-300 to 2500-3000 kg ha^-1. Also, use the same abbreviation for Organomineral fertilization as FMO OR OMF in the whole manuscript.

·         In the results and discussion section, kindly give the result values along with CV and give strong previous references to your results.

·         kindly check units of each value (cm² cm²) in your results and discussion section.

·         Kindly explain your results more precisely and make figures in bar graphs.

 

·         Kindly check the English language in the whole manuscript. There are most writing mistakes in the whole manuscript. 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The English Language can be improved.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, in the methodology more details were added about the V4 stage where the coverage treatments were applied. As for the measurement unit "cm2 cm2", it is correct, and refers to the leaf area, which is why it was not changed. The suggestion to replace it with bar graphs was also not accepted, as the figures would contain too much information, making it difficult for the reader to understand, given the large number of treatments studied in the research. Thank you for the suggestions made.

 

Observations: the corrected attached file contains changes suggested by other reviewers and accepted, which are highlighted in the text.

 

Greetings,

Gisele Teixeira

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article is devoted to a very interesting topic: the development, nutrition and agronomic yield of common beans when applying the organomineral formula "FMO", obtained from sewage sludge biological solids, in combination with inoculation of Rhizobium tropici and co-inoculation with Azospirillum brasilense.

The article deserves publication in Sustainability

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thank you for your comments on the scientific article.

Observations: I attach the file containing the highlighted readjustments in order to meet the suggestions of the other reviewers.

 Greetings,

Gisele Teixeira

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

An alternative that has been widely studied to improve the efficiency of BNF is the com-                               69

bination with bacteria that promote growth of the root system, such as Azospirillum bra-                             70

silense, through a co-inoculation process.

Azospirillum brasilense is well known as freely living in soil  nitrogen fixator

 

The soil in the area is characterized as dystrophic Red Latossol (Oxisol), sampled in the                                 88

0-20 cm layer. The chemical characteristics of the soil can be found in the supplementary                            89

material (Table S1).

 

I have not access to S1 table, but the soil must be acid. In acid conditions mineral fertilisers usually increase soil acidity which is not favorable for Fabacea plants. This could explain why mineral fertilisers have not good impact on yield.

 

To meet these requirements, the organomineral formula obtained was 02–18–10. The           109

amount needed to obtain the formulation is: 3.7 kg of urea as a source of nitrogen; 38.4 kg   110

of MAP as a source of phosphorus; 17.2 kg of KCl as a source of potassium, and 40.7 kg of     111

treated sewage sludge.                                                                                                                                               112

MAP must be Monoammonium phosphate which have about a 10-12% of Nitrogen. That is why it is not only P source but and N source

A liquid in-                                                                                                                                                                         127

oculant based on R. tropici was used at a dose of 150 mL 50 kg-1 of seeds and 150 L ha-1 in                            128

topdressing at the V4 stage. The root growth regulator Azospirillum brasilense was applied                         129

in the seed treatment at a dose of 100 mL 50 kg-1 of seeds and 100 mL ha-1 in topdressing                             130

at the V4 stage. The control did not receive any inoculant or fertilizer.

Inoculants are used usually on seeds. During inoculation they must be protected from sun light, because UV light is killing all microorganisms. Please explain how Azospirillum brasilense is protected from UV light applied on leaves during foliar application?!

The yield compared with the additional treatmentof cultivar Pérola (Figure 10a) showed                              489

a statistical difference for the control treatment of the Pérola cultivar

A mistake exist in treatmentof.

Observing the influence of organomineral use on bean production compared to mineral 532

fertilization, [28] obtained as a result the highest grain productivity for the organomineral 533

treatment. This led to the conclusion that there is possibly greater nutritional availability 534

for this type of agricultural fertilizer, resulting in positive outcomes.

Usually it is due to the better organic matter mineralization in presence of added inorganic nitrogen fertilisers and the better C:N ratio obtained.

 

References                                                                                                                                          579

Some of words are glued with other words in some references. Usually, it comes from older Word versions=

Author Response

Dear reviewer, all suggestions were included in the article. Thank you for your comments on the scientific article.

Observations: I attach the file containing the highlighted adjustments in order to meet your suggestions and those of other reviewers.

 

Greetings,

Gisele Teixeira

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

MS “Organomineral fertilization associated with inoculation of R. tropici and co-inoculation of A. brasilense in common bean" (authors Diana R. dos Reis, Gisele C. da S. Teixeira, Itamar R. Teixeira, Guilherme R. Silva and Brenda B. A. Ribeiro) is devoted to rather interesting question – the effects of the organomineral substrate obtained from sewage sludge, the nodule bacterium Rhizobium tropici, and nitrogen-fixing bacterium Azospirillum brasilense on the development and yield of plants of 3 varieties of common beans. The methodology of conducting field experiments does not raise any questions, the statistical analysis is carried out competently, the results obtained are discussed quite correctly. However, there are claims to the MS. Let's start with the name, in which 2 (!) times we see abbreviations of Latin generic names until the first letter, which is completely unacceptable. In general, I must say, the MS is written carelessly, its text needs serious proofreading. For example, there are no spaces in many places, in Figures 5, 7, 8, 9 the word Testemunha is found repeatedly (meaning control or what?). In the text, repeated 2 times abbreviation cm² is occured several times (p. 206, etc.) – why so? In Tables 1 and 2, abbreviation MS should not be placed above SV and DF (here the line separating them is superfluous). It seems like a trifle, but it looks illiterate. Well, and in the last row of the table there are dashes – why are they? And finally, a trifle, but still: in this table 2, in the line of the Residue, the whole part is separated from the fractional part by a comma (0.27143) instead of a dot.

A serious note to the MS is that there is too much quoting of Brazilian literature, it would be worth referring at least to reviews compiled by authors from all over the world, for example: 1. Shamseldin A, Velázquez E. The promiscuity of Phaseolus vulgaris L. (common bean) for nodulation with Rhizobia: a review. World Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology. 2020 36: 63.

2. Smith WB, Wilson M, Pagliari P. Organomineral fertilizers and their application to field crops. Animal Manure: Production, Characteristics, Environmental Concerns, and Management. 2020 67:229-243.

The list of references is made up completely ugly, especially annoying is the omission of spaces between words (for example, references 10, 17, 18, 33, 34). Google Scholar cann’t find some references at all (32, 38).

I believe the publication of the MS is possible, but only after it is serious edited.

Author Response

Dear …., all suggestions were met, including the replacement of a large part of the references in portuguese, with only three being maintained, which are the basis for carrying out the research. We would like to thank you for all the suggestions presented, which were of great importance in improving the quality of the article.

 Greetings,

Gisele Teixeira

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors should explain their results with a strong background of references. The unit of Leaf area is not cm2 cm2. In equation 1, the authors are using unit "m2" while in figure, they are presenting  cm2 cm2. Kindly write unit cm2 . 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

There are minor mistakes in writing. Kindly check and correct them.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, the leaf area unit in the text and figure was corrected to m2. In addition, error corrections were made throughout the text, as well as corrections to the references used.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for the suggestions made, which were extremely important for improving the quality of the article.

 

Yours sincerely,

Gisele Teixeira