Review Reports - The Impact of Drought Risk on Maize Crop in Romania

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

Due to the fact that I request the authors, in later sections of my review, a complete rewriting and restructuring of the Results and Discussion sections, the manuscript is rejected as it stands but a major revision is accepted upon resubmission. However, the authors should not be discouraged, as the work has the quality to be published but needs improvements to give coherence to the whole. Below I establish the major points of my review for the authors to address or clarify:

1) The authors are requested to rewrite the Results and Discussion sections, given that the Discussion section is ridiculously small (half a page without references or comparison with previous works), and the Results section includes not only the results but also a discussion of them. Furthermore, the article is quite scarce in bibliographic references when discussing.

2) The authors are requested to make aesthetic improvements to the figures and to modify Table 1 by converting it into a panel with a figure and a table.

3) And the big question of this article: can this study be supported simply with averages and standard deviations? Are there no other statistical packages that could reinforce your conclusions?

Below I establish the minor and major concerns from beginning to end of the document:

ABSTRACT:
L10. "The most frequent risk for Maize crops register in..."

KEYWORDS:
More keywords are admitted. Look for more to increase the impact and discoverability.

INTRODUCTION:
L36-40: Explain better the climate change, its relevance in agriculture and the importance of food security in a world with an increasing population estimated at almost 9.5 billion people by 2050. Cite the IPCC panel.
L45. "Among all of the plant biotic and abiotic stresses, the most recurrent risk in Europe's climate is drought."
L49-55. Here authors should mention "desertification" and cite the UNCCD (United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification).

LITERATURE REVIEW:
L79. 5ºF → Please use the international unit system (ºC) or if you wish, use ºC and mention in parenthesis ºF in this way: "1.62ºC (5ºF)".
L112. Set a space between "distributed" and "[17]".
L114, L118, L120, L121, L126 References are required in these sentences.
L121. "...access to crop roots and conversely, low or no precipitations...". In this statement, references are required for both extremes.

METHODOLOGY:
In this section there's a big problem with the lack of use of passive voice. For example: "we chose to focus on" must be changed to, i.e., "this study is focused on". That happens many times in this text:
L164 (we analyze), L165 (we want), L166 (we took), L172 (we analyze), L173 (we're ensuring), L188 (we extracted), L189 (we calculated), L190 (we also identified).
L154. Reference is required.
L164. QUESTION. What statistical or data calculation software was used? Please describe it properly.

RESULTS SECTION:
Results section is a mixture between results and discussion section. Discussion section is extremely poor. I commit authors to rewrite both sections entirely, to separate results and discussion.
Figure 1. Pixelated image. Higher quality files should be uploaded to the platform. Same comment for Figure 3 and Figure 4.
Figure caption 1. Describe in the footnotes/figure caption the change in colour, and the calculation done (tons of Maize per hectare). Cite or comment how many counties are in Romania.
Table 1. A composition of the averages and the values in a boxplot (with the standard deviation) should be shown in a panel as Figure 2A on the left, and on the right Table 1 (Panel 2B) better adjusted to the size of the text inside. Boxplot is very easy to do, I suggest authors use Prisma Graph. An example of what I ask authors is uploaded as a drawing.
Figure 2 (the present Figure 2 in the MS) and also Figure 5:
- Please avoid the use of Times New Roman in figures, it looks odd and old, use Arial or Calibri.
- Remove the box/squared lines around the figure.
- Increase the font size and set it to bold letters in: the legend, the Y and X axis text/numbers, the Y axis title.
- Cut the Y-axis at 2,000,000 and set the Y-axis to zero (that is only for Figure 2).
- Add markers for Y and X axis.
- Use thicker black lines for Y and X axis.
- Describe better the figure caption.
- All these proposals are included as a drawing in the attached PDF.

L381. Lack of passive voice again and grammatical issues in "we can be observe" (L381); "we opted for" (L413); "we applied" (L416); "we can conclude" (L430-431); "we analyzed" (L441); "We also wanted to" (L444).
L445. "The data-set is/are relevant". Check it.

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS:
data cura-tion → remove hyphen.

REFERENCES:
Check the following styles in the references and set them into ONE style in each item, to avoid heterogeneity of the style:
- Authors list. The last author shows sometimes "and" and sometimes "&".
- Authors are listed using commas "author 1, coauthor 2, coauthor 3" and sometimes separated using semicolon "author 1; coauthor 2; coauthor 3".
- Journal names are sometimes abbreviated and sometimes not.
- Journal names are sometimes italicized and sometimes not.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Dear Authors,

Overall, the manuscript is well written, although there are some sections in the Materials and Methods that are written in the first person, which I believe should be revised to use the passive voice instead. Aside from this detail, the rest of the document is quite well written in English. These comments are shown in the text above.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We sincerely thank you for your time, valuable comments, and constructive suggestions, which have helped us to improve the quality of our manuscript. Below we provide a detailed response to each comment. All changes have been incorporated into the revised version of the manuscript, and corresponding corrections are highlighted in the text.

In order to improve the quality of the article we also used MDPI service for English writing and Figures/Tables.

In the attached word file you have all the answers for each comment.

Thank you again,
Alina Manescu

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This article investigates the impact of climate change on maize production in Romania, analyzing long-term production trends and regional differences from 2003 to 2024. Research has found that corn yields have significantly decreased since 2015, closely related to severe droughts in 2020, 2022, and 2024. The southeastern region is most severely affected, while the western and northern regions are more resilient. The study also evaluated historical economic losses and emphasized the systematic nature of drought risk. The article calls for measures such as regional adaptation strategies, expanding irrigation infrastructure, and promoting index insurance to enhance agricultural resilience. However, the manuscript reads like a technical report and lacks the presentation of scientific questions. I think the current manuscript lacks innovation, the research content is relatively plain, and its contribution to science is limited.

Major Comments
I think the main issue with this manuscript is the organizational structure of the paper. The research objective presented by the author at the beginning (Lines 27-35) can be moved to after line 145.

The study employed various statistical methods, which are suitable for evaluating yield variability and estimating guaranteed yield. However, although the Olympic averaging method excludes extreme years, it is debatable whether it can fully represent current and future climate conditions. It is suggested that the author further discuss the applicability of this method in the context of climate change in the article.

The data source is the Romanian National Bureau of Statistics, which has high credibility. However, the research is limited to the period of 2003-2024, and there are doubts about whether it can fully reflect the impact of long-term climate change. In addition, the study did not involve other factors that may affect maize yield, such as diseases and pests, soil fertility, etc. Suggest the author to explore this point in the discussion.

The article proposes suggestions such as investment in irrigation infrastructure, promotion of climate resilient crop varieties, and agricultural insurance, which have certain foresight. However, the implementation of these recommendations requires consideration of practical issues such as economic costs, technical feasibility, and policy support. I think we can discuss the implementation path and potential obstacles of these suggestions, provide specific policy frameworks and cost-benefit analysis.

Minor Comments
The literature review section is relatively comprehensive. Therefore, the abstract section should first briefly present the research background, existing research shortcomings, and other information.
In the literature review section, the study on the fertilization effect of CO ₂ can further explore its performance under different climatic conditions.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

In order to improve the quality of the article we also used MDPI service for English writing and Figures/Tables.

In the attached word file you have all the answers for each comment.

Thank you again,
Alina Manescu

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Line 261: Figure 1. Average Maize Yields over 20, 15, 10, and 5 Years in Romania. Is it possible to conduct a spatial autocorrelation analysis to identify the spatial patterns of changes in maize yields in Romania? Additionally, it would be helpful to determine where maize yields are increasing or decreasing.
Line 264: It reveals an upward trend between 2000 and 2015 followed by a sharp decline in the last five years. Could you explain the sharp decline in maize yields in more detail? What are the main factors contributing to this decline?
Line 330: Figure 2 illustrates the dynamics of the area cultivated with maize during the period 2003–2023 (hectares) along with the 3-year moving average. What about the maize yields? It would be better to present the annual maize yields, similar to Figure 2.
Line 367: In 2023, Romania has the lowest level of cultivated maize in the last 20 years. However, in 2010, the level of cultivated maize was also very low. It is necessary to discuss this situation in 2010.
Line 427: Some counties have the highest adjusted production values in Figure 4. These are considered counties with developed infrastructure and less exposure to drought. It is important to show the annual precipitation data in the study area. Additionally, please show the spatial difference of drought in Romania.
Line 455: This is an interesting finding, as the analysis highlights that 2007 was the most severe year in terms of recorded losses. How did farmers and the government work to overcome this impact?

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

In order to improve the quality of the article we also used MDPI service for English writing and Figures/Tables.

In the attached word file you have all the answers for each comment.

Thank you again,
Alina Manescu

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I fully endorse this manuscript for publication. I appreciate the authors' efforts in addressing my suggestions.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We sincerely thank you for your positive feedback and for endorsing our manuscript for publication. We truly appreciate your time and valuable suggestions, which have helped us improve the quality of the work.

Thank you again,

Alina Manescu

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Although the manuscript has undergone significant revisions, I still believe there is a little room for improvement:
1. The abstract needs to be reorganized. There is too much explanation of technical methods and too little presentation of research results and conclusions.
2. Conclusion section. I think the content related to the discussion can be moved to the discussion section. This section only retains the research findings.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We sincerely thank you for your time and for your additional feedback regarding our manuscript. Your feedback helped us to improve the quality of our manuscript

In the attached word file, you have all the answers for each comment.

Thank you,
Alina Manescu

Author Response File: Author Response.docx