Application of Directly Brewed Compost Extract Improves Yield and Quality in Baby Leaf Lettuce Grown Hydroponically

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have been improved the manuscript following the reviewers' suggestion. Good job, congrats.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your comments.

Reviewer 2 Report

Weird way of denoting ANOVA significances. All columns should have letters. The current way of presenting the data in tables is very confusing. The authors should refer to some recently published papers to get the correct denotation of letter significances from ANOVA. Other than that, the revisions seem to increase the soundness of the research.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your comments.

Our data were presented in the same way as in other published papers (El-Nakhel et al. 2019; DOI 10.1002/jsfa.9985, but probably this way could be a little bit confuse.

Following your recommendation, we have written the letters of significance in all the tables in order to clarify the results.

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper need major revision. In particular:

The title of the paper must be change because the authors haven't used a CT but a compost extract (CE). CT is the result of a separate compost fermentation in a liquid (generally water) with a specific compost:liquid ratio for a definited time with or without aereation. In this work, compost is only put in the nutritive solution used for to growth plants.

Introduction must be improved adding more important paper about CE use and suppressivity.

It is necessary to improve analyses of CE for nutrient composition (all principal anions and cations), microbial composition (different groups of bacteria such as Bacillus spp. and Pseudomonas spp., Escherichia coli, total and fecal coliforms etc., number of total fungi, number of Trichoderma spp.), and biostimolation propriety of CE by tests on plants such as Lepidium sativum.

Results and Discussion must be improved based on chemical, microbiological and biostimulation analyses on CE. In particular, authors can considerate the effective role of chemical, microbiological and biological (biostimulation) characteristics of compost extract (and no CT !) to improve growth and production of baby leaf red lettuce used in this study. Moreover, microbiological characterization is very important for to establish the possible role of some microrganisms (in particulsr Bacillus, Pseudomonas, Trichoderma) to control Phytium.

Author Response

Please see the attachmnet.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Giménez et al. Reported a study on the effect of compost on baby leaf lettuce grown hydroponically

Title

I suggest: Tea Compost Improves Yield and Quality in Baby Leaf Lettuce Grown Hydroponically

Line 34. I suggest to include this reference https://doi.org/10.1080/14620316.2019.1577186

Line 43. I suggest to include this reference https://doi.org/10.1080/00103624.2015.1122803

Line 76. The authors should report how the nutrient solution was prepared (fertilizers, etc.). Which concentration of oxygen was used?

Line 95. Regarding the main characteristics the authors reported a reference, however, please briefly describe the main characteristics both in term of nutrient composition and biological stability.

Line 97. Tap water?

Line 98. These bags? How many? In my experience the described method is too strange. Generally, CT is prepared apart, and the obtained solution is used as fertilizer or biostimulant.

Is not clear how the CT was prepared and used. In addition, the chemical and microbiological analysis of the CT is missed.

Other important parameters should be reported as leaf dry weight, harvest index and specific leaf area. These parameters are fundamental for this type of study.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf