Effects of Formula Fertilizer and Biochar on Cadmium and Plumbum Absorption in Maize (Zea mays L.)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Overall, the study presented decent originality, significance and research methodology. However, the writing style and language use had some severe flaws that negatively impacted on the clarity to the readers. Major problems include:

1.       In many spots that described the results of all treatments, the authors tended to compared treatments with CK (control) and SH (lime) at the same time. Those statements were very confusing since many numbers showed up simultaneously and the reviewer could not follow which number belonged to which comparison. In the reviewer’s opinion, the comparison baseline should be CK only so that  the statements could be concise, and the meaning could be clear. The reviewer understands that the authors would like to emphasize that other treatments might be superior to SH in many aspects, but since all figures and tables already clearly labelled the statistical analyses results, readers could grasp such idea easily. If the authors insist on emphasizing such thing, please split up the sentence into multiple ones to avoid using CK and SH as comparison baselines simultaneously.

2.       The verb tense used throughout the manuscript was basically chaotic. The authors mixed up past tenses with present tenses in many spots. For example, in the material/methods and results section, all verbs should be in the past tense, while in the discussion section, if the statement is about a mechanism or a fact, the tense should be present. Detailed suggestions will be given at the end.

3.       Many sentences were incomplete with missing subjects, verbs or other components. Scientific publications should use very formal expressions rather than lab report language. Detailed suggestions will be given at the end.

4.       Some sentences were unnecessarily too long with meaningless redundancy. Clarity and conciseness are very important for manuscripts. Detailed suggestions will be given at the end.

Based on such facts, the reviewer highly recommends the authors to find some native speakers and read through the manuscript again, since the language problems were widely spread, and the reviewer might have neglected some errors.

Method-wise, the reviewer would like to know the rationale of the experimental design (Table 2). Specifically, why application rates of the remediation materials were chosen as those numbers? For example, why the biochar rate was 0.30 t/hm2 but FS used 0.03 biochar t/hm2? Did the authors perform preliminary tests to prove that these numbers worked best for each treatment? Or these were just empirical numbers from local farmers?

Details on the suggestions  of language edits are as follows:

1.       Line22-24: This is an incomplete sentence. There is no verb at all.

2.       Line 31: change ‘can reduce’ into ‘reduced’ and change ‘inhibit’ into ‘inhibited’.

3.       Line 33: change ‘can significantly reduce’ into ‘reduced’.

4.       Line 34: change ‘the effect is’ into ‘the effect was’.

5.       Line 35: change ‘can reduce’ into ‘reduced’.

6.       Line 36: change ‘increase’ into ‘increased’.

7.       Line 37: change ‘can be’ into ‘was’.

8.       Line 39-40: ‘which was not significantly 39 different from that of SH’ and ‘could achieve the effect of SH’ expressed the same meaning; please delete either part to avoid redundancy.

9.       Line 40: change ‘increase’ into ‘increased’.

10.   Line 65: ‘And may also…’ is not a complete  sentence. Change it into ‘This may also cause…’

11.   Line 68: what did the authors mean by ‘species are abundant’?

12.   Line 72-73: It is hard to understand ‘which can make heavy metal passivation agent and Cd in soil complexation, adsorption and precipitation’. Did the authors mean ‘which can facilitate complexation, adsorption and precipitation between the heavy metal passivation agent and Cd in soil’?

13.   Line 106-110: The whole sentence is too long and basically the reviewer cannot understand the part ‘and combined with tillage system, climate, 109 soil and other conditions.’ It reads like an unfished sentence.

14.   Line 111-113: There is no subject in the sentence.

15.   Line 139-144: This sentence lacks a verb; please add ‘include’ after ‘Soil conditioning materials’.

16.   Line 141: what is CL? Chlorine? If so, change it to ‘Cl’.

17.   Line 144: add ‘and’ before ‘lime’.

18.   Line 170: change ‘is adopted’ into ‘was adopted’.

19.   Line 170-172: This sentence lacks a verb and the reviewer cannot understand what it would like to convey.

20.   Line 182: change ‘is weighed’ into ‘was weighed’.

21.   Line 185-186: the mesh screen cannot be ‘crushed’. It is the soil that is crushed. Change the sentence into ‘the 10-mesh screen and 100-mesh screen were used for soil sieving, and the ground soils were reserved in ziplock bags.’

22.   Line 193: the authors need to cite  a reference or briefly described the three-step continuous extraction method.

23.   Line 198: please specify what N, P and K in soil were measured. Total? KCl extractable? Or other?

24.   Line 202: It reads like an SOP instruction rather than a statement from a research publication. Change the sentence into ‘Indicators were calculated based on the following equations:’

25.   Line 204-205: This equation can be misleading. Change it into ‘TF = plant concentration of this element (mg·kg-1)/another plant part concentration of this element (mg·kg-1)’

26.   Line 300: change ‘are between’ into ‘were between’.

27.   Line 301: again, change ‘are between’ into ‘were between’.

28.   Line 310: do ‘core’ and ‘cob’ referred to the same thing? Please use consistent terms to avoid confusion.

29.   Line 318: change ‘range’ into ‘ranged’.

30.   Line 319: change ‘can significantly increase’ into ‘significantly increased’.

31.   Line 322: change ‘can be achieved’ into ‘could be achieved’.

32.   Line 329-300: delete ‘, showing a significant difference (P < 0.05).’ Previously, the authors already pointed out ‘was significantly reduced’; therefore, the last part is meaningless repetition.

33.   Line 331: change ‘saw’ into ‘showed’; also, there is no description about DTPA-Pb in this paragraph at all. The authors might have forgotten this part.

34.   Line 336: change ‘are between’ into ‘were between’.

35.   Line 338: change ‘can reduce’ into ‘reduced’.

36.   Line 340: change ‘has’ into ‘had’.

37.   Line 354: what is ‘residual Pb weak acid’? Also, change ‘are between’ into ‘were between’.

38.   Line 363-364: change ‘…have been increased, with the increase ranges of 19.62%-42.80% and 5.92%-37.76%, respectively.’ into ‘…increased by ranges of 19.62%-42.80% and 5.92%-37.76%, respectively.

39.    Line 373: changed ‘ranges’ into ‘ranged’.

40.   Line 382: why did ‘fertilizer’ show up twice?

41.   Line 383: change ‘are obtained’ into ‘were obtained’.

42.   Line 384: change ‘are subject to’ into ‘were subject to’.

43.   Line 405: change ‘was’ into ‘is’.

44.   Line 406: change ‘were enriched’ into ‘are enriched’ and change ‘made’ into ‘makes’.

45.   Line 444: the sentence ‘ Reduce…’ is incomplete. There is no subject.

46.   Line 462: the example is only about Cd. Can the authors discuss about Pb too?

47.   Line 488-490: again, no citations discussing about Pb are given.

48.   Line 502-503: it is hard to understand ‘and eventually Pb to changes in the bioavailability of soil heavy metals’. The authors talk about Pb or heavy metals in general?

49.   Line 507: The study investigated rice? The reviewer believes the crop has been maize.

Author Response

1. In many spots that described the results of all treatments, the authors tended to compared treatments with CK (control) and SH (lime) at the same time. Those statements were very confusing since many numbers showed up simultaneously and the reviewer could not follow which number belonged to which comparison. In the reviewer’s opinion, the comparison baseline should be CK only so that the statements could be concise, and the meaning could be clear. The reviewer understands that the authors would like to emphasize that other treatments might be superior to SH in many aspects, but since all figures and tables already clearly labelled the statistical analyses results, readers could grasp such idea easily. If the authors insist on emphasizing such thing, please split up the sentence into multiple ones to avoid using CK and SH as comparison baselines simultaneously.

A: Dear reviewer, thank you very much for your valuable comments. In terms of the expression of the results, the author failed to make a clear statement. At present, CK has only been used as the comparison baseline, and the expression has been concise to make the whole sentence read more clearly.

2. The verb tense used throughout the manuscript was basically chaotic. The authors mixed up past tenses with present tenses in many spots. For example, in the material/methods and results section, all verbs should be in the past tense, while in the discussion section, if the statement is about a mechanism or a fact, the tense should be present. Detailed suggestions will be given at the end.

A: Dear reviewers, thank you very much for your professional comments. The author has revised and adjusted the full text according to your detailed suggestions at the end of the article. Please refer up.

3. Many sentences were incomplete with missing subjects, verbs or other components. Scientific publications should use very formal expressions rather than lab report language. Detailed suggestions will be given at the end.

A: Dear reviewers, thank you very much for your professional comments. The author has revised and adjusted the full text according to your detailed suggestions at the end of the article. Please refer up.

4. Some sentences were unnecessarily too long with meaningless redundancy. Clarity and conciseness are very important for manuscripts. Detailed suggestions will be given at the end.

A: Dear reviewers, thank you very much for your professional comments. The author has revised and adjusted the full text according to your detailed suggestions at the end of the article. Please refer up.

Based on such facts, the reviewer highly recommends the authors to find some native speakers and read through the manuscript again, since the language problems were widely spread, and the reviewer might have neglected some errors.

Method-wise, the reviewer would like to know the rationale of the experimental design (Table 2). Specifically, why application rates of the remediation materials were chosen as those numbers? For example, why the biochar rate was 0.30 t/hm2 but FS used 0.03 biochar t/hm2? Did the authors perform preliminary tests to prove that these numbers worked best for each treatment? Or these were just empirical numbers from local farmers?

A: Dear reviewer, thank you very much for your attention to the experimental design. In the previous study, our laboratory conducted a preliminary test on the dosage of different types of soil conditioners, and obtained the results of the optimal application dosage. The dosage of this test is based on the results of the preliminary test.

Details on the suggestions  of language edits are as follows:

A: The details of the language editor have been modified in the text, please refer to it.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Authors assessed the effect of customized fertilizers, lime and biochar on the reduction of cadmium and lead in maize plant parts grown in field. Authors assessed total and available forms (DTPA-Cd, DTPA-Pb) in maize plots applied with remediation fertilizers, biochar and combination of both and compared with lime and conventional fertilizers. Keeping in view of sustainability of soil ecosystems use of fertilizers used in the study are discouraged and hence contradicts with the current scenario of plant production systems. However, the use of biochar in the study could be a notable contribution. Authors concluded results based on one season data and therefore no conclusions can be drawn. Nonetheless, the study includes voluminous data but then it was casually processed and poorly written. I feel it needs major overhauling. Some of doables are suggested below-

1. Title: Need to be revised, current title misleads to the readers as remediation fertilizer has not yet established.

2. Abstract: poorly written, there are many typos errors and has long incomplete sentences. Whole section needs to concise for example lines 17-20, lines 22, 38 has long and incomplete sentences have poor legibility to readers.

3. Introduction, Methods: Whole section needs revision. There repetitions at many places, lacks hypothesis and aims clearly. Lines 64-73 not clear, ambiguous and contradicts with the current scenario of environment required sustainable management practices. Explain why remediation fertilizers are needed and how it enhanced the organic matter within one season with citing relevant references (e.g. Line 515). There are many sentences which not clear and confusing e.g., Lines 118-123, 127-134 aims and hypothesis are not clear; word controlled environment has repeatedly used in the study explain how it was controlled and created?

Method of fertilizer application, recommended dose of fertilizers used for target crop maize and how and at what spacing it was grown, seed rate, duration of experiment etc., are missing.

Tables: incomplete, title includes heavy metals in soil was these levels analysed after amending fertilizers/biochar/lime? What was heavy metal levels in remediation, mixed/compound, straight fertilizers, and biochar used in the study? Table lacks foot notes; tables should include LSD values used for differentiating treatment means/significant ranges.

Conclusion: Line 506-507 include rice yield was it used in the study? This section also needs to be concise and amended.

Author Response

1. Title: Need to be revised, current title misleads to the readers as remediation fertilizer has not yet established.

A: Dear reviewers, according to your valuable comments, the author has revised the title. Please refer up.

2. Abstract: poorly written, there are many typos errors and has long incomplete sentences. Whole section needs to concise for example lines 17-20, lines 22, 38 has long and incomplete sentences have poor legibility to readers.

A: Dear reviewers, thank you very much for your valuable comments. According to your comments, the author has revised and adjusted the abstract. Please refer to it.

3. Introduction, Methods: Whole section needs revision. There repetitions at many places, lacks hypothesis and aims clearly. Lines 64-73 not clear, ambiguous and contradicts with the current scenario of environment required sustainable management practices. Explain why remediation fertilizers are needed and how it enhanced the organic matter within one season with citing relevant references (e.g. Line 515). There are many sentences which not clear and confusing e.g., Lines 118-123, 127-134 aims and hypothesis are not clear; word controlled environment has repeatedly used in the study explain how it was controlled and created?

A: Dear reviewers, thank you very much for your valuable comments. The author has revised the preface and methods to simplify and clarify the relevant content. Please refer to it.

Method of fertilizer application, recommended dose of fertilizers used for target crop maize and how and at what spacing it was grown, seed rate, duration of experiment etc., are missing.

A: Dear reviewers, thank you very much for your valuable comments. The relevant information has been added to the fertilization and method section. Please refer to it.

Tables: incomplete, title includes heavy metals in soil was these levels analysed after amending fertilizers/biochar/lime? What was heavy metal levels in remediation, mixed/compound, straight fertilizers, and biochar used in the study? Table lacks foot notes; tables should include LSD values used for differentiating treatment means/significant ranges.

A: Dear reviewers, the concentration of soil heavy metals in Table 4 and Table 5 is the concentration after the application of each material. The content of heavy metals in the materials applied in the study has been reflected in Table 1, and the missing content in the table has been supplemented by the authors, please refer to you.

Conclusion: Line 506-507 include rice yield was it used in the study? This section also needs to be concise and amended.

A: Dear reviewer, thank you very much for your advice. This is the yield of corn and the spelling error in writing. I apologize to you. In addition, the author has also simplified the content of the conclusion section, please consult.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

There are still a few grammatical errors:

1. Line 108: other fertilizers included: ......

2. Line 127-129: change all verbs from present tenses into past tenses.

3. Line 485-489: ZHU et al. [31]showed that the most of the biological effectiveness of Pb in soil was from the reducing state Pb, and passiagent can could react with soil Pb via physical and chemical precipitation, complexation and adsorption of physical and chemical reaction, which changed the chemical form and of Pb in soil, the form of from high activity to low activity form, so as to achieve the purpose of passivation Pb.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, please check the revised manuscript according to your comments.